


Looking For a Savior

by RedRowan



Series: Stars and Horns [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Luke Cage (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bisexual Matt Murdock, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Female Matt Murdock, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Season/Series 02, Rule 63, girl!Matt Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-28 09:13:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8439901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRowan/pseuds/RedRowan
Summary: Wilson Fisk starts his campaign to destroy the lawyers and the vigilante who landed him in Ryker's.  It's vicious and brutal, and it's all Mattie and Foggy can do to hold on and stay alive.  And that's before Steve gets dragged into the mess.Some fights just leave you bloody, but Mattie Murdock has never known how to back down from a fight.





	1. Every Finger in the Room is Pointing At Me

_Looking for a savior in these dirty streets._  
_Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets._  
_I've been raising up my hands,_  
_Drive another nail in._  
_Got enough guilt to start_  
_My own religion._ -"Crucify," Tori Amos

Hoffman is dead: to begin with. The prison authorities at Seagate call Mattie to tell her that he died in the night. A fire. An accident, or a possible suicide. Mattie doubts the second scenario. There are easier ways to go in a prison cell than burning yourself alive.

There will be an investigation, they tell her.

“They won’t find anything,” she says when she tells Foggy over the phone.

“You think this is Fisk,” he says. It’s not a question.

“Don’t you?”

He’s silent.

“Yeah, I do,” he says.

There won’t be anything in the official investigation, but there will be a trail, and Mattie knows someone who’s good at finding those sorts of things, and who currently has a lot of time on her hands.

“Can I talk to Nat?” she says when Steve picks up the phone.

“Hello to you too,” he says.

 “Hi, sweetheart, I love you, now can I talk to Nat?”

He sighs and hands over the phone.

“Hey, Mattie,” comes Natasha’s husky voice. “What’s going on?”

“Former client of mine just died in Seagate Prison. A fire in his cell during the night. They’re telling me it was either an accident or a suicide.”

“This client happen to be connected to the Fisk case?”

“He was the key witness. Carl Hoffman.”

“I’ll see what I can dig up.” There’s a chuckle on the other end of the line. “Steve’s practically making grabby hands at the phone.”

“It’s OK, you can give it back to him. Thanks, Nat.”

“Any time.”

“Mattie?” comes Steve’s voice.

“Hey.”

“What’s this about Fisk?”

“Hoffman’s dead. Pretty sure Fisk had him killed.”

“Are you OK?”

“I’m fine.” _I’m a goddamn grownup and a vigilante to boot, Rogers._ “Fisk probably took him out because of the appeal.”

“When’s that?”

“A few weeks from now.”

There’s a pause. “Or he could be clearing the board,” Steve says quietly.

“I can take care of myself. And Foggy.”

“I know. Just…be careful.”

But careful won’t get her answers. She goes to work with the thought of Carl Hoffman burning alive in his bed; she goes out in the mask with the scent of burning flesh in her nose; she tries to sleep with the sound of screaming in the back of her head.

_Stop. Break it down into questions you can answer._

She’s almost certain she knows who is responsible, but she needs to know _how_ if she’s to accomplish anything.

She can hear the banter in Pop’s Barber Shop when she’s halfway down the block; Bobby is lecturing the others on basketball strategies. She pushes open the door, and the bell over it rings, and the conversation stops. She’s an intruder here, a white woman in black men’s space. 

Bobby Fish never cared about that.

“Mattie, good to see you,” he says, and he touches her shoulder before leaning in to kiss her cheek.

“Hi Bobby,” she says, and she can hear the other men in the shop relax. “Is Luke here?”

“In the back. I’ll get him.”

The barber Bobby hired goes back to his haircut, but the conversation doesn’t start up again. She hears Bobby tell Luke that she’s here to see him, then Luke comes out.

“Mattie,” he says suspiciously. “Everything OK?”

Claire had asked her, just after New Year’s, to represent Luke when he’d been carted off to Seagate. Bobby had the file that had exonerated Carl Lucas for his original conviction, and Mattie had been able to argue that his time served (and his highly questionable treatment while incarcerated) more than compensated for his escape from Seagate and time as a fugitive. They haven’t spoken since the judge in Georgia had declared Luke a free man, even though Mattie knows Luke and Claire are seeing each other now. She doesn’t blame Luke for being suspicious of her; to him, she’s only around when there’s trouble for him.

“I was wondering if I could talk to you,” she says.

“Sure, come on back.” He puts his hand on her back, guiding her gently through the shop. 

“What’s got you coming all the way up here?” Luke says.

“Wanted to talk to you about Seagate,” she says. “Also, I don’t have your number.”

“You could have gotten it off of Claire,” he says.

“She was busy,” Mattie lies. She catches herself. “And I kind of needed to get out of the office,” she admits.

Luke is leaning against the washing machine. He crosses his arms.

“What’s up?”

“There was an inmate at Seagate. Carl Hoffman. Wondering if you ran into him.”

“First time or second time?”

“Second time.”

Luke pauses. “Anything else to go on?”

“Mid-fifties, ex-cop?”

“Yeah, yeah, I think I know who you’re talking about. Bald, skinny guy?”

“No idea.”

He chuckles at that.

“What about him?” he says.

“He’s dead. Two nights ago. I was wondering if you remember anything about him. Were there any groups he was hanging with? Anyone who had a beef with him?”

Luke shrugs, and catches himself. “I shrugged,” he says. After Foggy, he’s been the fastest person to remember to tell her about visual cues. “Much as I can remember, he kept to himself. Ex-cops aren’t exactly popular in Seagate.”

 _Like you?_ Neither of them say it.

“He a friend of yours?” Luke says.

“Client. My first big one.” It’s weird to say that, knowing she’s had even higher profile clients since then. They’d been so excited, back then.

“The Fisk case,” he says.

“Hoffman was the whistleblower.”

“So why’d he end up in Seagate?”

“He murdered his partner in cold blood for a couple hundred thousand from Fisk.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” he says mildly. “Sorry, don’t remember much more about him.”

“It’s OK, it was a long shot anyway.” She makes to stand up from where she was leaning, but thinks of another question. “If you were trying to burn someone in their bed in their cell, how would you do it?”

“That’s how he went out?”

“Yeah.”

“Sweet Christmas. Bad way to go, and I say that as someone who’s been set on fire.”

“You always have an interesting perspective on injuries,” she says, grinning.

He laughs, then goes quiet for a moment. “Assuming this was during the night?” She nods. “Inmates would have trouble pulling that off. You’d have to soak the bed in some sort of accelerant, then throw a flame in somehow. The way the cells are designed, you’d be throwing around the wall between the cells.”

“In a curve.”

“Mm-hmm.” He pauses. “Wouldn’t be my first plan. You’re banking on your man not noticing the bed is soaked, and that your aim is good enough to land on the bed. There are easier ways to take someone out. Cleaner, too.”

She nods, pressing her lips together.

“You think someone did this to him?” he says.

“Yeah.”

He nods thoughtfully. “I nodded. Look at the guards. If I wanted someone burned in Seagate, that’s how I’d do it.” Mattie knows that Luke has very strong opinions on the Seagate guards, and none of them good.

“Thanks.” She puts her hand on the doorframe.

“You in trouble?” he says quietly.

“No. Not yet.”

“Give me your phone.” She pulls her phone out of her bag and hands it to him. She hears him clicking through, then he presses it back into her hand. “Programmed my number. You need help, give me a call. By my count, I still owe you a few.” Luke, she knows, is not someone who likes being in anyone’s debt.

“Thanks,” she says.

That night, she calls Steve and asks Nat about the guards on duty when Hoffman died. Nat tells her she’ll email the personnel files, and dig into their backgrounds. Then she hands the phone back to Steve.

“You doing OK?” he says.

“I’m fine,” she lies breezily. “Just want to get the facts.”

There’s a silence, and she wishes he were here with her.

“I miss you,” he says.

“Miss you too. I should go, I still have to go out tonight.”

“OK. Be careful.”

She laughs. “You know me better than that.”

And then it’s heroin dealers and petty criminals for the rest of the night.

_This is my life._

Nat emails her the personnel file of the guard, Mary Mallon, who was on duty in Hoffman’s cell block, and who quit the day after his death, having worked one week at Seagate. The covering email says succinctly, in that Natasha Romanoff way, that Nat thinks Mary Mallon doesn’t exist.

“Doing some digging, will let you know what I find,” the email says. Natasha also attached the video of Hoffman’s cell block the night he died, with a bullet-point description. Mattie’s listening to Natasha’s notes when she realizes that there’s been knocking on her door.

“Foggy?”

He holds up a bag of Italian takeaway and a bottle of wine.

“Figured you’d be obsessing over Hoffman,” he says. “Thought you might need fuel.”

She smiles, a real smile, and takes the wine.

“Actually, you are just the man I need,” she says. “Come and have a look at something?”

She shows him Mary Mallon’s personnel file and the video.

“I know the video cuts out, but can you tell me anything about her? Is she doing anything suspicious before it cuts out?” she says.

Foggy clicks at the computer.

“Do you know which one’s Hoffman’s cell?” he says.

“No clue.”

“OK, she stops in front of one particular cell, and glances at the camera. Then she looks back into the cell, says something, then looks at the camera, and that’s when it cuts out.”

“Looks how?”

“Like, intense?”

Mattie takes a sip of wine. “Think she blew the camera?” she says.

Foggy shrugs and takes a drink, turning away from the computer. “How would that even happen?”

“Wanda Maximoff could do it.”

“Wasn’t she tortured by Hydra? And, like, the only one to survive?”

“With her brother.” Mattie leans back. “Doesn’t mean there aren’t more like her.”

Foggy chuckles. “Sometimes I forget who you hang out with these days.”

“Not doing a lot of hanging out,” Mattie says bitterly.

He nods. “You heard from him recently?”

“Yeah, we talked last night. He’s fine.”

“You miss him, don’t you?”

She shrugs. “I’m managing. Got it down to only missing him in my waking hours.” Which is a lie.

Foggy nods, and glances over at the computer.

“Do me a favor?” he says. “Don’t drive yourself crazy over Hoffman. We know Fisk did it, and we’ll probably never be able to prove it. It’s not worth it.”

“He was our client.”

“Not exactly one of the innocents.”

“We were the ones who found him. I was the one who sent him to the cops. It doesn’t matter what he did, I’m still responsible for putting him there.”

“It’s not your fault.”

She doesn’t say anything to that.

But there’s no new information over the next few days; Natasha tells her that Mary Mallon’s records are most likely a carefully-constructed false identity, with just enough to fool a cursory background check, but not enough to be a real person. Mattie tells her the theory that Mary Mallon might be telekinetic, and Natasha says she’ll look into it.

And everyone worries about her. Steve, Foggy, Claire, they all get that tone in their voices that she can’t stand. Meeting up with Peter is the one relief she has, since he’s blithely unaware of anything that goes on in her civilian life.

It’s almost a week after Hoffman’s death when Foggy calls her around ten at night. She’s already in the suit, halfway up the stairs, when she hears her phone announcing his name.

“Mattie?” he whispers, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“What’s going on?”

“So, you remember that guard? The one from Seagate?”

“Mary Mallon?”

“She’s here.”

Mattie feels the bottom drop out of her stomach.

“What do you mean she’s here?” she says, the words tumbling out of her.

“I mean, I saw her, she’s at HC&B working as a cleaner. I saw her when I ran out to get coffee.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. Ducked around a corner. Don’t think she saw me.”

“OK, where are you now?”

“In my office.”

“Is she close?”

“I don’t know.” There’s a pause, and she can hear a door opening, then shutting. “She’s not in this hallway.”

“OK, lock the door, I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“Locking the door won’t help - we have glass doors!” he hisses.

“It might slow her down. If she’s after you. Just - stay out of sight until I get there.”

She slams on her helmet, and sprints recklessly over the rooftops, swinging down into the canyons of the streets and avenues, the sweat that drips down her neck nothing to do with the physical exertion. She lands on the roof of the HC&B building, and lets herself in. She pulls out her burner (her Daredevil burner, and what does it say about her that she has two burners?) and calls Foggy.

“I’m in the stairwell, northeast corner. Coming down to you,” she says.

“Mattie, she’s in the hallway, I can see her checking the offices.”

“Shit. Your lights are off?”

“Yes!”

“Stay out of sight.” And then she hears a woman’s voice, sing-songing Foggy’s name.

“I know you’re here!” the woman crows.

Mattie cuts the call and jumps down the stairs.

When she’s two floors up from Foggy’s office, the fire alarm goes off.

_Shit, Foggy, please stay out of sight._

She bursts onto Foggy’s floor, fighting her way through a small crowd of panicking lawyers rushing for the exits. She barrels down the hall to Foggy’s office, feeling the heat rising, and hearing a woman’s laugh.

And Foggy’s heartbeat. She can still hear that.

Foggy’s office door has been shattered. There are flames surrounding the woman and Foggy, who is backed against his desk. The woman has a knife at Foggy’s throat.

“Hey, little devil,” the woman says over her shoulder.

Mattie responds by throwing a club at the woman. It freezes midair.

_Fucking telekinetics._

At least she was prepared to follow up, and she’s leaping at the woman before she can even think to grab the club out of the air. She lands a punch, and Foggy scrambles away. Mattie slams a club across the woman’s face, smelling the spray of blood, but the woman counters not with blows, but by grabbing Mattie wherever she can and pulling her close.

“Burn,” the woman whispers, and all Mattie can feel is heat.

There’s crackling in her ears, and she can feel where the suit tears, exposing her skin to the flames. Smoke fills her lungs, and she thrashes out, trying to hit the woman, hoping that will kill the fire. She feels a strike land, then there’s a hissing and something blessedly cool is covering her, and she kicks twice, hearing the woman drop to her knees. There’s a metallic thwack, and the woman falls to the ground. Foggy stands over her, the fire extinguisher in his hands.

“Thanks, man,” Mattie says. She’s dripping in foam, and she gasps deep, beautiful breaths. Foggy wraps his arms around her.

“You OK?” he says when he lets her go. He starts spraying the fires around the office; most of his office furniture is burning.

“Fine. You?”

“You don’t look fine. I think the suit’s a goner.” He’s right, she can feel where it’s burned through in a dozen places, and the whole outer layer has gone unpleasantly crispy. She unzips her pocket, and her phone smells like burned plastic. Most likely dead.

“Damn. I hate asking Melvin for another suit. He always sounds disappointed in me.”

They laugh, because it’s all they can do right now.

“Fire department’s here,” she says. “I better go.”

“In that? No, here, let’s get it off, you can put my coat on.”

She grins as she fumbles with the clasps of her suit. “People are going to think we were having a quickie.”

“Let them think,” he says, pulling his coat out of the closet in the corner. She drops the burnt armor to the floor, and he snatches it up and stuffs it into the back of the closet. Her billy clubs and helmet go into a drawer in his desk that he locks. She wraps the coat around her, over her undershirt and tights, and hears the fire fighters coming down the hall. They burst in and unceremoniously haul Mattie and Foggy down the hall; she can hear Foggy saying that the woman in the office attacked him and lit his office on fire, and that Daredevil saved him.

“My friend was hiding in the closet,” he lies.

_Yeah, they’re definitely thinking we were having a quickie._

They sit side by side as they’re checked over by the EMTs. Mattie sucks oxygen out of a mask.

“You should call Karen,” she says. “She’ll want you to be the one to tell her.”

“Right.” He doesn’t move. “He’s going to come after you next.”

“I know.” She remembers what Steve said. “He’s clearing the board.”

“What about Karen?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think she’s on his radar. He only mentioned you and me when I…” She waves an inarticulate hand.

“Yeah.” He sighs. “We should hire bodyguards, or something.”

She chuckles, then coughs, and takes another breath of oxygen.

“Who would we hire?” she says as she takes the mask away.

“I could hire Jess. And you could get what’s-his-name, you know, Claire’s boyfriend. Isn’t he supposed to be bulletproof or something?”

“That’s what the song says.” Mattie happens to know it’s true. “Luke’s got his own shit to deal with, he doesn’t need mine.” She hears them bringing Foggy’s attacker out of the building on a gurney. “You should hire Jess, though, it’s a good idea.”

There’s a heavy pause. “I think Fisk has made his point about me. You’re the one I’m worried about.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Kind of my thing, buddy.”

He’s been worried about her since the day they met.

The burns heal quickly enough; the suit took the brunt of the flames. Foggy smuggles her clubs and mask out of the office, and she turns them over in her hands as she sits alone in her apartment. She considers putting on the black mask again, but decides against it. What she should really do is go see Melvin, but she can’t face him right now.

Not after the last time, when she’d returned Elektra’s outfit to him. He’d been kind, and understanding, and gentle, and she hates the thought of him pitying her, thinking her less than invincible.

_Gotta stay strong._

He’d seen her break. He’s one of the only ones who ever has.

She locks the clubs and the mask away, and tries to sleep, thinking of Steve in her bed and sliding her fingers between her legs.

She’s woken by her phone announcing Karen’s name. Her alarm hasn’t gone off, and all her senses are screaming that something is wrong. There’s a crowd outside her building. Reporters. 

_Fuck, what did Steve do now?_

“What’s happened?” she manages.

“Mattie, oh my God, you need to get on the _Globe_ ’s website right now. There’s an article about you.”

Mattie gets out a syllable that’s supposed to be “What?”

“They’re saying - fuck, they’ve just outed you as Daredevil.”

“WHAT?!”

She grips the edge of the bed as if it’s a life raft. She can hear Foggy’s voice, telling Karen to tell her he’s coming over.

“Foggy’s coming over,” Karen says.

_Coming to rescue me._

“There are reporters outside,” she says dully.

“He’ll get through.” Karen’s voice is shaking. “Mattie, I - oh, shit, that’s my work phone, it’s Ellison, he probably wants me to write something about you.”

“Say something nice,” Mattie hears herself say. “Say I love kittens, or something.”

“I’ll call you back.” Karen hangs up.

Mattie falls back on the bed. She should read the article. She should find out what they’ve said about her. What they know, and what they’ve guessed.

Find out who did this to her.

Her burner, Steve’s burner, rings.

“You saw it,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“What does it say?”

“Exactly what you’d think.” He sighs, and she imagines him running his hand through his hair. “They’ve got testimony from the Raft that you were there. They’ve made the connection with the Fisk case and the Punisher case.”

“Not that hard.”

“They keep quoting an anonymous source. And…they’ve connected you with Elektra.” He’s quiet for a moment. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. If I come clean, I…Fisk has already sent someone after Foggy. If he finds out about me, he’ll try to tear apart everyone I love.”

“I’m coming to you,” he says.

“No.” She sits up in bed. “No, you can’t be here for all of this.”

“I can help -“

“I need you safe. I need…” She presses the heel of her hand against her forehead. “I need to know that you’re not going to get caught in the middle of this.”

She holds her breath, waiting for him to respond.

“You’re sure about this?” he says.

“Yes.”

“OK. OK, but you promise me that you’ll let me help you if I can?”

“Sure. I promise.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.” There’s a swell of sound, she can hear questions being hurled at Foggy in the street below. “I have to go. Foggy’s here.”

“Take care of yourself, Mattie.”

She drags herself out of bed and opens the door before Foggy knocks.

“How bad is it out there?” she says.

“Bad.” He’s not lying. 

“Tony. Tony. Tony,” her phone sings out.

“I should -“ she says.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Foggy says. She takes the call.

“Tony. Surprised you’re up this early.”

“Never went to bed. Saw the news.”

“Lot of people did, apparently.”

“You know what I’m going to say.”

“Answer’s no.”

“I can make this go away, Hornhead.”

“No, you can’t,” she says with resignation. “Not even you can.”

“It wasn’t me,” he says.

“I know.”

“And, funny thing, remember Ultron? Seven-foot-tall apocalypse-bot?”

“The one you created?”

“Yeah, that one. Crazy how he wiped all the computers in the Tower the night he attacked the party. Even got the security feeds, so, unfortunately, the footage of Rogers heroically defending you won’t be making it online.” She hears a metallic scraping; he must be working on one of his suits while he’s talking. “Ross was asking.”

“Thank you, Tony.”

“See you around, Jezebel.”

She hangs up.

“He wants you to sign the Accords,” Foggy says.

“That was just an excuse,” she says. “He wanted to tell me that Ross is looking into this.” She sinks onto the couch.

“What do you want to do?”

She imagines, for a moment, packing a bag and running to wherever Steve is.

“I don’t know,” she says, running her hands through her hair. “I can’t come clean - not now, not with Fisk coming at us.”

“Not to mention you’d get disbarred, then arrested, then sent to whatever superhero Gitmo you busted the others out of.”

“At least I know how to bust out of there.”

“So not the point.” He sits down opposite her. “We sue. Sue until we’re blue in the face, deny everything, slap anyone who dares put your name in the same sentence as Daredevil with a lawsuit.”

“We can’t do that.”

“Why not? We’re lawyers. This is how we fight.”

“And when they subpoena Tony? Rhodey? Hell, Karen? Are you going to ask them to perjure themselves for me?” She gestures at the phone she’d dropped next to her. “If Ross is already going to Tony, then he knows Tony knows something. As long as we keep this out of court, we can keep denying it.”

Foggy sighs. “Speaking of keeping things out of court…if Ross is asking questions, then you’re probably going to get a visit from some friendly officers of the law. Do you still have…” He waves a hand toward the wardrobe with her trunk.

“Just the mask and clubs,” she says. “And the old suit.”

“Oh, you mean the shitty one?”

“Fuck off.”

“OK, load up a bag, I’ll get it out of here.”

“That’s obstruction.”

“And aiding and abetting,” he says evenly.

She lets her mouth twist into a grimace. “Don’t carry it out with you. Not in front of the cameras. I’ll bring it to you tonight.”

“Yeah. Maybe it’s a good thing the suit got burned. Means you can stop.”

_I’m not going to stop._

She stands up. “I gotta get pretty for the cameras,” she says.

Foggy leads her out of the building, his arm around her shoulders, fending off the shouted questions.

_Miss Murdock, are you really blind?_

_Miss Murdock, does Steve Rogers know?_

_Mr Nelson, how long have you known?_

_Miss Murdock, did you help Bucky Barnes escape?_

_Miss Murdock, what is your relationship with Frank Castle?_

_Miss Murdock, what happened the night Elektra Natchios died?_

_Miss Murdock, is it true?_

_Is it true?_

_Is it true?_

It goes on for days. The crowd around her building and around the Storefront Clinic never seems to dissipate. The phone rings off the hook, begging for interviews, begging Becky, Claire, anyone who works there. Her email address is inundated. Karen tries to stave off the _Bulletin_ , but Ellison is putting pressure on her, too, so Mattie and Foggy make their one and only statement to her.

“Mattie Murdock is a blind woman who has overcome every obstacle ever put in front of her, and has proven herself an asset to the legal community and this city. She has been at the centre of one of the most controversial cases regarding super-humans, protecting the constitutional rights and civil liberties of global heroes. We can only conclude that this so-called story is either a gross misunderstanding, or a politically-motivated smear campaign against a leading figure of the anti-Sokovia Accords side.”

Brett Mahoney shows up on her doorstep three days after the article, holding a search warrant as if he’s ashamed of it. She’s already slipped her burner into her jacket pocket, and she pulls out her real phone to call Foggy. Brett directs the other cops in their search as she stands in the middle of her apartment.

“Sorry about this,” Brett says.

“It’s fine. I kind of knew this was coming. I’d offer you a coffee, but…” There’s a cop currently checking her coffee grounds for weapons. Or something.

“Got a pair of car keys?” says a cop, holding up the keys to Steve’s bike.

“I’m really hoping you don’t have a licence,” says Brett.

“They’re not mine,” she says quietly. “My boyfriend’s.”

“Oh.”

Foggy steps through the open door.

“Seriously?” he says. “What the hell?”

“Just routine,” says Brett.

“Tearing a blind woman’s apartment apart is just routine?”

“Hey, look,” Brett snaps. “The whole vigilante thing, it gets people riled up. Castle turned Hell’s Kitchen into a war zone, Cage had Harlem split right down the middle. So someone says that Captain America’s girlfriend is Daredevil, we have to at least say we took it seriously.”

“There is no admissible evidence in that article -“

“I know,” says an exasperated Brett. “Believe me, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to be.”

There’s nothing to find. Mattie and Foggy made sure of that.

She goes out running, careful not to be seen. She meditates. None of it helps. Days pass, and the interest in her doesn’t wane. The original story is teased apart, tiny connections turned into wild speculation. 

_Did Steve Rogers teach Daredevil her moves?_

_Was Daredevil working for the Avengers?_

_Is Daredevil a super-soldier?_

_Is Mattie Murdock cheating on Steve Rogers with the Punisher?_

The last one, she knows, will make Steve furious. Not because he doubts her, but he can be adorably old-fashioned about things like a woman’s reputation.

“Mattie, there’s a call for you,” comes Becky’s voice over the phone, jolting her out of her news spiral.

“Who is it?”

“Melvin Potter? He says he knows you.”

_What?_

“Put him through.”

Her phone rings once, and she picks it up.

“Mattie Murdock.”

“It’s you,” Melvin says. “It’s really you.”

“Mr Potter, I’m not sure -“

“I need help. It’s Betsy.”

She closes her eyes. _Fisk._

“How can I help?”

“She’s in trouble. I need…you. Here.”

_How far do I go to keep this up?_

He’s seen her face. He’s watched her break.

“I’ll be right there,” she says.

She takes a taxi, which is a luxury she’s never had before. She can hear Melvin inside the workshop. No-one else. She knocks on the metal door, and Melvin rolls it up. His heart is beating fast, frightened.

_What’s happened?_

“Come in, quick,” he says, taking her arm and pulling her in before slamming the door down. She can smell saline on his face. He’s been crying.

He holds her at arm’s length, then reaches out and puts a hand over her eyes, gently. He nods.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he punches her.

Her head slams back against the door as her glasses fall to the ground. She tries to bring up her arm to block the next blow, but Melvin has a solid grasp on her arm, and he’s too close, forcing her up against the door. He hits her again, before grabbing her hair. He swings her around, bashing her forehead against the work bench, then his strong arms wrap around her throat.

She struggles against him, jabbing with her elbows, her heels, scrabbling on the work bench, but his weight pins her down, and the world on fire goes out.


	2. Gotta Have My Suffering

Steve has mixed feelings about Florida. On the one hand, he likes that it’s warm. He likes the scenery. He likes the little boat that Natasha rented that they can take out onto the ocean. On the other hand, it’s sticky, humid, and full of mosquitoes who are probably going to start a whole mutant population thanks to the amount of Super-Soldier Serum they’ve taken from him.

And the people here are far too nonchalant about things like drugs that can give you superpowers. Or believe you have superpowers; they still haven’t figured out if some of the effects are psychosomatic.

Case in point: the ninety-pound kid shrugging off blows from Steve, even as he’s lifted off his feet. Nobody’s even bothering to film this on their phones.

Nat thinks the drug is Hydra in origin, either stolen from Von Strucker, or deliberately distributed by his followers. The plan _had_ been for Steve, under cover, to try to buy a large amount off the kid, agree for a later delivery, and for Nat and Sam to follow him to his distributor. Unfortunately, the kid had ducked and run, and then swallowed a dose before flying at Steve’s face like an ill-tempered seagull.

Sam runs in, nightsticks at the ready, and shocks the kid before he can get up. Steve glances over and sees Nat pull the car up to the mouth of the alley. He knows what that means.

Steve wants to swear.

“We should get out of here,” he says.

“Gotcha,” says Sam. They run for the car, and Nat peels away from the curb.

“Soon as he bolted, the runners and the spotters scattered,” Nat says as she drives. “They won’t be coming back here any time soon.”

Steve nods. 

_A week of work down the drain._ They’ll have to find another dealer, start all over again. He rubs the pressure point between his eyebrows.

There’s a pinging from the back seat.

“Sam, can you get that for me?” Nat says. Steve glances back to see Sam rooting through the small pile of electronics Nat keeps back there. She’d said she likes to be connected, but Steve thinks she likes being her own mobile headquarters. The pinging gets louder as Sam pulls out a tablet.

“It’s locked,” he says.

Nat pulls up at a stop light and holds out her hand. Sam hands her the tablet, and she does something arcane that unlocks it. She glances at the alert, and Steve watches her lips thin and her eyes narrow. For Natasha Romanoff, that’s the equivalent of a look of shock.

“What’s happened?” Steve says. He glances down at the tablet, and sees his old code name. “Nat?”

“Just a second,” she says. The light turns green, and she races through the intersection, sweeping the car into the nearest driveway.

“Let me see that.”

“What’s up?” says Sam, leaning between their seats.

“It’s…about Steve. Hold on,” Nat says. She swipes at the screen, and a video frame appears, showing a man’s black-clad chest. The headline underneath says “A message for Captain America.”

“Play it,” he says.

Nat taps the screen, and the video starts.

It’s addressed to him. Of course it is. The man in black steps away from the camera, showing Mattie tied to a chair. It’s warm in Florida, but Steve is freezing right now. Mattie’s glasses are missing, and there’s blood on her lip and running from her nose. A man standing to one side of her hits her across the face, and Steve watches her, sees the expression he used to see when he’d spar with her. The one that says “That’s all you’ve got?”

But these bastards have her tied to a chair, and he’s going to tear them apart.

The man in black, his face covered with a balaclava, tells Captain America that he has twenty-four hours to hand over the Winter Soldier, or she’ll die.

“Hail Hydra,” the man says, and the video cuts out.

He meets Sam’s eyes, and sees the same fury he’s feeling. He looks at Nat, and her jaw is tight.

“When did this go up?” he says.

She flicks at the screen. “Twenty minutes ago,” she says.

“Seventeen hours to New York,” Sam says.

“We can cut it down,” says Nat. 

Steve nods. “Let’s get moving.”

She was wearing one of her button-down blouses, in the video. Which means she was supposed to be working. As Nat drives, Steve pulls out his phone and calls the Storefront Clinic.

“Storefront Legal Clinic, Becky speaking,” Becky says in a rush.

“It’s Steve.”

“Oh, my God, you saw it.” Becky sounds like she’s almost crying. “Steve, I didn’t even know she was missing, I should have called the cops…”

“It’s OK. It’s OK. Was she at the office today?”

“Yeah, she just left a few hours ago, around two.”

“Why’d she leave?”

“She got a call. A guy, said he knew her.”

“Did you get his name?”

“Uh…Marvin?”

“Melvin? Melvin Potter?” 

“Yes!”

“And she left right after she got the call?”

“Yeah, she said she had something to take care of. Oh, God, Steve, do you think -“

“Becky, do you have the number he called from?”

“Yeah! Yeah…” He can hear her pressing buttons, babbling a little in her panic. “OK, I think this is it.” Steve glances at Sam, who has a pen and paper out. Becky gives him the number, and he repeats it for Sam. 

“Becky, call Mike Sousa at the 17th, OK? He’s a friend, he knows Mattie, he can help.”

“OK.”

“Don’t worry. I’m coming to get her.”

Nat is pulling up at the house they’ve been staying in, an old SHIELD safe house. Steve ends the call.

“Wheels up in ten,” he snaps as he throws open the car door. They leave in five.

Sam takes the first driving shift. Nat and Steve huddle in the back seat, Natasha’s computers spread out on their laps. Nat does most of the heavy lifting, but Steve needs to pretend he’s doing _something_.

Nat starts hacking into the phone that called Mattie. She’ll have a GPS location by the time they’re past Georgia. She does the same for Mattie’s phone, but neither of them have high hopes that it’s in the same place that Mattie is.

She puts together a profile of Melvin Potter. She has his address, his criminal record, everything the government ever had on him.

“He’s not really your standard Hydra material,” she says, scrolling through the data. 

“He worked for Fisk,” Steve says.

“As a tailor,” she says dismissively. “Didn’t she say Fisk blackmailed him?”

“Maybe that’s how Hydra got to him, too.”

Nat pulls up the profiles of known Hydra agents in the Tri-State Area, but she shakes her head.

“Stunt like this doesn’t fit any of them,” she says. “It’s too…crude. Too public.” She looks at Steve. “And if they did get Barnes back, they have to know that Tony’s going to be right on their tail.” She frowns. “Feels off.”

“All of this is off,” he says. _I was supposed to protect her._

He watches the scenery slip by, jet-black trees illuminated by their tiny headlights.

 _If you think you can make me choose, then you have no idea who you’re dealing with._ Neither Mattie nor Bucky would ever forgive him if he made that choice.

The night wears on. They switch drivers, and keep going, monitoring the state police patrols, avoiding speed traps. They blast through the Carolinas, then Virginia, then Maryland. Sam and Nat manage to sleep in the front seat when they’re not driving. Steve doesn’t try.

_Hold on, I’m coming._

The sun is shining as they cross into New Jersey. Nat has the GPS location of Melvin Potter’s phone, and glances a question to Steve.

“We’ll start there,” he says.

The journey ends at a non-descript house in New Jersey, a garage out back and a concrete yard out front. Nat parks the car a block over, and Sam pulls Redwing out of the trunk. He gently strokes the head of the drone as Nat rolls her eyes.

“Say hi, Redwing,” he says.

“Just get that thing in the air,” Nat says.

Sam sends Redwing to loop around the house. The infrared scanner shows seven people in the house, two more out back by the garage. And the mics pick up the two outside, drawling out profane fantasies about the blind girl inside.

Steve nearly leaps out of the car, but Nat’s hand on his arm stops him.

“Easy, big guy,” she says sharply. Her eyes are peering at the overhead view of the house. “Plan first, hitting later.”

“Uh, guys?” says Sam. “I think we got company.”

Steve glances up, and even though his girlfriend might be being tortured, he almost sighs in exasperation.

_Of course._

Frank Castle is standing in front of the car.

Steve rolls down the window.

“Castle,” he growls.

“Cap,” Castle says, leaning on the car.

“What are you doing here?”

“Pretty sure same thing you are. Come to get our girl.” _My girl._ “Saw the drone, figured you were close.” He glances at Nat and Sam, nodding at them. “She in there?”

“Yeah,” Nat says.

“You got a plan?”

“Six inside, plus her, and two out back,” Steve grits out. “Go in through the back, hit the ones inside from behind.” Castle nods. Steve thinks it’s approvingly. He doesn’t care. He glances at Nat and Sam, and they nod as well. “Suit up, let’s go.”

He and Sam opt for kevlar under their jackets; Nat declines on the grounds of flexibility. Steve reluctantly hands Castle one of their extra comms as Sam calls Redwing back. Steve sends Nat with Castle around the eastern side of the block while he and Sam take the long way around to the western side, so as not to attract too much attention. As he and Sam pass the front of the house on the other side of the street, Steve sees a tall, thin woman with black hair knocking on the door.

_Damn. Nine._

Seems like overkill to control one blind woman, but barely enough to control the Winter Soldier.

_Or Captain America._

All the houses on the block have back yards and garages backing onto the alley; the other side is the mirror image. Steve and Sam cut between two houses and crouch behind a garage opposite their target. The house has a garage and a gate manned by two guards. They can hear the guards speculating about Mattie and Steve’s sexual relations. Steve would cheerfully strangle them both.

“In position,” comes Nat’s voice.

“Widow and I take the guards, Falcon and…” Steve sighs inwardly. “ _Punisher_ cover us. Keep an eye on the upper windows.”

“Hang on, someone’s coming,” Nat says.

Steve peeks out, and sees the black-haired woman sauntering down the alley, her hands tucked into the pockets of her leather jacket.

“Saw her knocking on the front door,” Steve says. 

“Hostile?” says Castle.

“Unknown. Hold, see what she does.”

The woman stops in front of the guards.

“Hey, you guys seen my dog?” she says, completely unconvincingly. “‘Bout this high, black, real friendly?”

“Nah, sorry, lady.”

“I call her Daredevil.”

The guards laugh. “Yeah?” says the other one. “Bit far out for Daredevil here.”

“Yeah, she hates Jersey.” The woman reaches out and grabs one of the guards, throwing him behind her. He sails across the alley, hitting the garage door opposite. The woman drags the other guard around the corner of the garage, out of sight from the house. She lifts him with one hand around his throat. “I got a very worried, very rich lawyer who wants a certain blind girl back in one piece,” she says, and Steve decides to make the call.

“Go,” says Steve.

All four of them race across the alley and flank the woman with the black hair. Steve glances across the alley at the other guard, and sees the massive dent in the garage door above him. He meets Sam’s eyes, which are equally surprised.

“Jesus, really?” says the woman.

“Who are you?” Steve says.

“Jessica Jones,” she snaps. The guard in her grip is starting to choke.

“Let him down. Don’t let him go.” She puts the guard’s feet back on the ground, but keeps her grip. She scowls at Steve. “What are you doing here?” Steve continues.

“I’m a PI - Foggy Nelson hired me to find Mattie Murdock.” Jones’ eyes narrow as she looks at him more closely. “That would be your girlfriend.”

“Yeah.” Steve gestures at the dented garage door. “You good in a fight?”

She shrugs. “Good enough.”

“OK.” He turns back to the guard. “She’s in there,” he says. It’s not a question. The guard nods. “Where?”

“Basement.” Steve glances at Nat, who nods.

“Let him go,” Steve tells Jones. As soon as she’s no longer touching the guard, Nat steps in with her taser, and the guard collapses, insensible.

“Cute trick,” Castle says.

“Thanks,” Nat says smugly.

“OK, we’re sticking to the plan,” Steve says. “Widow and I take point, Jones and Falcon in the middle, Punisher covers our backs. Once we’re inside, Jones and Falcon sweep the upstairs, Punisher and Widow take the ground floor, I’ll take the basement.” 

“You just want to be the hero for Mattie,” says Sam. Steve glares at him, and Sam’s smirk disappears. 

“If they try to take her out of the house, Widow and Punisher, take them out. Falcon cover from the windows.” He glances around. Jones is sneering a little, but doesn’t argue. “Let’s go.”

They sprint through the gate, and the gunfire starts. There are a few answering shots from behind them, and the second-story windows shatter. Steve sees some glass shards rain down on their team, but ignores it. Superficial cuts. He kicks in the back door, the clubs Mattie gave him in his hands. The first room is a kitchen, empty. He sees a figure in the hallway out front, and hears a gunshot, and the kitchen window breaks. He throws a club, letting it ricochet down the hall, and the person grunts and falls. There’s another door, across the hallway entrance, presumably the basement door, and he dives for it, trusting his team to take care of the other floors. He hears more gunfire as he wrenches open the door and leaps down the stairs into the dimly-lit basement.

Under the light of the bare bulb, he can see the tableau that is waiting for him. Mattie, her hands tied behind her back, is being held from behind by a tall, muscular man. The lower half of her face is covered with blood from her nose and mouth, her shirt is soaked in it. There’s a second man, holding a gun against her temple.

“Captain -“

The son of a bitch doesn’t even have time to get his threat out. Mattie throws her head back into the chin of the man holding her, and twists, her knee landing firmly in the gut of the one with the gun. She kicks up, knocking his head back. There’s a gunshot, but it goes wild. Steve leaps into the fight, landing on top of the man with the gun, and striking down with his fist and his remaining club. There’s a dark satisfaction as the blood spatters. When the man is unconscious, his face dripping red, he looks over at Mattie, gracefully flipping, pulling her arms under her feet, so that she lands with her hands cuffed in front of her. She’s barefoot, he notices. She steps between him the second guy, who is moaning softly on the floor.

“Mattie,” Steve says.

“ _What the hell are you doing here?_ ” she hisses.

It takes him a moment to realize that she’s mad at _him_.

“You were kidnapped!” he says.

“I was _handling_ it! You can’t be here!”

“You call this handling it?”

“I’m fine, Frank was already here -“

“Oh, right, because you’ll let _Frank_ rescue you -“

“Don’t be an idiot, this is a trap!”

“I know -“

“For you.”

The thought had occurred to him. He hadn’t voiced it to Sam and Nat. 

And he realizes that he’s heard the clear from both of them over the comms.

“We’ve cleared the house, let’s just go,” he says, reaching out to her.

“They’ve already _called_ Counter-Terrorism, the block is surrounded.”

“Wait - what? Counter-Terrorism’s Hydra now?”

“They’re _not Hydra_ , Steve. These guys are working for Fisk, and they put in the call the minute you took out the guards out back.”

“ _Fisk?_ ”

She absently wipes her face on her sleeve, leaving streaks of blood.

“I don’t know the whole deal, but -“ She suddenly turns to the tall man on the floor, the one still conscious. “Oh, God, Melvin, I’m sorry…” She kneels down, gently brushing her hand over his arm. Steve realizes that the man - _this is Melvin?_ \- is crying.

“He’s going to hurt her,” Melvin manages to sob out.

“That’s not going to happen, OK? My friend Frank is here, he can help.”

Steve fumes that she’s offering Castle’s help before his.

“We need to get upstairs,” she’s saying. Melvin is getting to his feet, still sniffling. She strides past Steve, her hands still cuffed in front of her. Melvin follows her like a puppy, and Steve brings up the rear, telling Sam to bring Jones down to the ground floor. While he’s still on the stairs, he hears Castle’s voice.

“You look like shit, Red.”

“Thanks, Frank,” she says.

Steve glances around the assembled team. Jones casually reaches out and snaps Mattie’s cuffs apart.

“Complication,” Steve says. “These guys aren’t Hydra, they work for Wilson Fisk.” He sees Castle react to that. “They called the Counter-Terrorism Task Force once they knew we were here, and the block is surrounded.”

“They’re taking positions now,” Mattie says, her head cocked.

“We need a way out. Castle - you have any explosives on you?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Frank says with a grin.

“We’ll use those to create a diversion. Blow the garage.”

“Got a better plan,” says Jones. Steve raises his eyebrows at her. “I’ve got a legit reason to be here. So does Mattie. I can take her outside, make a big fuss about the injured hostage.”

Steve is impressed.

“Good idea. Tell them you think you saw explosives on your way in. That should make them fall back, then we can blow the garage and get out.”

“Frank -“ Mattie reaches out and grabs Castle’s arm. Steve glowers. “Take Melvin back to Hell’s Kitchen. His…friend. Betsy. Fisk’s men have her, you need to get her out of there.”

Castle nods. “I got you, Red.”

Melvin wipes at his face. “I’m sorry.”

Mattie puts her hand on his shoulder, and leans up on her toes to kiss his cheek, leaving a spot of blood behind. “We keep each other safe,” she says, so soft Steve thinks he might be the only one besides them who hears. Mattie turns away from Melvin and faces Steve. He pulls her close, trying to be gentle, and kisses her hair.

“I love you,” he whispers.

 “I know,” she says.

Outside, over a bullhorn, they hear a demand to come out with hands up.

“Come on, Mattie, time to get your damsel on,” Jones says. Mattie steps back and hooks her arm around Jones’ neck. Jones holds her around the waist and scoops her up with her other arm under her knees, like she weighs nothing. Jones nods at Steve, and he nods back, then she carries Mattie out the front door. He hears her calling “Don’t shoot, assholes!” and generally making a scene, demanding an ambulance, demanding to speak with whoever’s in charge, demanding a phone to call Foggy Nelson.

There’s a ripple as the order goes to fall back.

“Castle, blow it,” Steve orders.

Castle pulls out a grenade and lobs it onto the garage roof. It blows, showering pieces of shingles everywhere. Castle lobs another one into the hole, and the windows shatter. A third one for good measure, and they run for it, across the alley, leaping over fences, racing through the narrow spaces between houses. The explosions in the garage created enough of a gap in the perimeter for them to squeeze through, and there’s no pursuit.

Castle and Melvin peel off to wherever Castle’s vehicle is parked, and Steve and Sam throw themselves into the back seat of their car while Nat drives them away from the scene, not even breaking the speed limit.

“Where to?” she says.

“Clint’s,” Steve says. They have a standing offer to use Clint’s place in Bed-Stuy as a safe house. “But…drop me off in Hell’s Kitchen.”

Nat glances up into the rear-view mirror at him.

“Her place’ll be swarming with press,” Sam says.

“She shouldn’t come home to an empty apartment,” Steve says.

Somewhere in the tunnel to Manhattan, Steve realizes that Castle still has their comm. _Of course he does._ When he mentions it, Sam grins.

“It’s inconvenient,” Steve snaps.

“Yeah. Sure. Inconvenient,” Sam says.

Steve fumes all the way to Hell’s Kitchen.

He has Nat drop him in front of a D’Agostino’s a few blocks up from Mattie’s apartment. He has grand plans to welcome Mattie home, and the Barton family chicken soup is the first step. He’d first found out about it when Rhodey and Sam had come back from a PR junket, both sick with a flu that neither of them could shake. It had been passed around the Mansion until only Steve and Vision were still standing, and they’d had to call Clint to come and be on standby, since none of the other Avengers were up for any missions. When Nat had heard Clint arrive, she’d dragged herself from her bed long enough to demand that he make her his soup.

“I make it for my kids when they’re sick,” Clint had said. “Made it for Nat after…actually, after the Winter Soldier shot her.” He’d chuckled. “Used to be, if she got hurt on a mission, it was probably my fault, so this was how I’d make it up to her.”

It’s a good soup recipe, with a homemade broth made from chicken wings and onions, then adding diced vegetables, noodles, and the meat from the chicken wings. Steve hopes he remembers everything.

Groceries in hand, he climbs the fire escape of a building a block away from Mattie’s apartment, and runs over the roofs to her door. He lets himself in, noting that the apartment is empty. She’s probably being kept at a hospital. He hopes she has Foggy, or Karen, or Claire with her.

He doesn’t turn on any lights; the afternoon sun is bright enough. Instead, he puts the broth on to boil.

_These guys are working for Fisk._

He chops vegetables as the broth boils, and lets his mind turn over what Mattie had said.

Melvin had been the one to call her. Steve is certain he’d been the one who had taken Mattie. And Mattie had sent him with Frank to rescue Melvin’s…friend. Betsy. Clearly, Mattie didn’t blame Melvin for this mess.

But if Fisk is involved with the Counter-Terrorism Task Force, then it means that the mess Steve created in Berlin has come for Mattie in an even worse way than he imagined.

The low-key hubbub of the reporters outside suddenly breaks into his awareness, and he glances out the window to see Mattie moving through the crowd, Foggy’s arm around her. There’s a black man about their age clearing a path ahead of them.

Steve steps away from the window before anyone looks up. He stirs the soup. He waits. He hears her key in the door. He hears Foggy sniff.

“Is someone -“ he says.

“It’s Steve,” Mattie says, and Steve steps around the corner.

Mattie has a bandage over the bridge of her nose, and a black eye. Her bottom lip is swollen, and there’s a butterfly strip on her forehead. Foggy’s coat is draped over her shoulders, and underneath she’s still wearing her bloody shirt and the skirt from her suit. He looks down, and sees a pair of cheap slip-on shoes.

Neither of them say anything.

“Steve, Jesus, thank you,” Foggy says, stepping past her and holding out his hand. Steve shakes it.

“It’s…” Steve nods at Mattie. “I’ll do anything for her.” He sees the corner of her mouth twitch.

“Not true,” she says, tired, but a little humour around the edges.

 _You wouldn’t choose between her and Bucky, would you?_

“Almost anything,” he corrects himself.

“Yeah, well, whatever, I’m just glad you were here,” says Foggy. He steps back. “I’ll leave you two alone. Call me tomorrow,” he says to Mattie as she slips the coat off her shoulders and hands it to him.

“Yeah. Thanks, Foggy.”

Foggy pats her shoulder, and waves at Steve as he closes the door behind him. Mattie lets out a long breath, and leans with her back against the wall. Steve goes to her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

“How are you doing?” he says.

She shrugs, her brow furrowed, and he pulls her forward, letting her bury her face against his chest. He feels her take a shaky breath before she puts her arms around his waist, and her weight starts dropping towards the floor. He holds her up for a moment, and then she’s able to support herself again. She turns her face up to him, and puts her hand against his face.

“Missed you,” she says.

“Me too,” he says, letting her feel him smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Barton family chicken soup recipe is a real one from Smitten Kitchen: https://smittenkitchen.com/2012/10/chicken-noodle-soup/
> 
> Trust me, once you've made it, it'll be the only chicken soup you'll ever want.


	3. Want to Spit in Their Faces

Mattie lets Steve hold her for a while, luxuriating in the warmth of him, the fact that he’s _here_ , he came for her. Then she pulls away, and stumbles into the apartment, brushing her fingertips against the furniture for guidance. The painkillers she hadn’t wanted, that she’d tried to refuse before Foggy had threatened to have the doctors keep her overnight, they make her skin feel wrong, like she’s feeling everything through a barrier.

“You OK?” he says. 

“They gave me painkillers at the hospital,” she says. “Everything’s…off.” She sniffs the air, barely able to smell anything. “Is that soup?”

“Yeah. Thought it would…” 

She reaches out to him, and he takes her hand.

“Thank you,” she says. It’s bigger than just two syllables.

“If you want to rest, it’ll keep.”

She nods, and while half of her body just wants to collapse into a puddle right now, there’s something she wants even more.

“What I really want is a _bath_.” 

“I’ll run it for you,” he says.

The water is the perfect temperature, easing her aches and soothing her skin. She folds up a towel and rests her head against it, feeling comfort in being surrounded, knowing Steve is just outside the door.

She wakes up to find Steve leaning over her, his hand on her shoulder.

“You fell asleep,” he says.

“Fucking painkillers.”

He chuckles and holds out a towel for her. She brushes her hand against his instead.

“I missed you so much,” she whispers.

“I missed you, too.”

She stands up, and he wraps the towel around her. She stumbles groggily into the bedroom, and falls onto the bed naked. He pulls the covers over her, and she’s asleep before he can even tell her to rest.

She’s not sure how long she’s asleep, but when she wakes up, she curls into Steve’s arms, ignoring the usual complaints from her body, and drinks in his presence: warm, comforting, home in a way she’s never associated with anyone. And then she realizes that _Steve is in bed next to her_. She’s confused for a moment, before the events of the past two days come crashing back to her.

_Oh, right. Kidnapping. Damsel in distress rescued by brave heroes._

Heroes, plural. Not just Steve, who loves her. Not just Sam and Nat, who care about her, and who will go anywhere with Steve. Frank had shown up unasked, been the first one to find her, in fact. And Foggy had sent Jessica to do whatever he couldn’t.

Five people had risked their lives and their freedom because she was in danger.

_Huh._

She leans over and smacks her alarm clock, wishing it was quieter when it chirps out that it’s 2:13 AM.

Steve stirs next to her, and she leans over him.

“Go back to sleep,” she whispers, and he mumbles something and drifts off again.

She dresses quickly in a hoodie and sweatpants, and slips out onto the roof. There are still a few reporters on the street outside the building, but most of them have gone home for the night, probably having concluded that she won’t be getting any famous visitors at this hour. She crouches on the edge of the roof for a moment, listening to them.

_Look up here. I’m not afraid of you._

No one looks.

She runs instead. She’s acting on instinct, on guesswork, to find her destination, but when she drops into the alley behind Melvin Potter’s shop, she can hear that she guessed right. Melvin and Frank are inside, with a woman Mattie assumes is Betsy. Melvin and Betsy are talking quietly when Mattie slips in the back door.

Frank’s the one who notices her.

“Hey, Red,” he says.

“Hey, Frank.” She steps into the workshop. “How’d it go?”

“She’s all in one piece,” he says, and she knows him well enough to hear what he’s not telling her. About the dead bodies he left behind.

“Good.” She pushes her hood off; there’s no point to disguises anymore. “I’m Mattie,” she says to Betsy.

“Betsy. Betsy Beattie.” Betsy offers her hand, and Mattie shakes it. Betsy’s body is cool, she’s trembling slightly. “Melvin…he tells me about you. About what you do.” Her head turns, she’s looking at Melvin. “He’s been…better. Since he met you.”

“He’s a good friend,” is all Mattie can say.

“I’m gonna take ‘em to a safe house, until this whole thing dies down,” says Frank. “But Potter wanted to wait for you.”

“Wanted to give you these,” Melvin says. He holds out his hands, and Mattie recognizes her glasses and her shoulder bag.

“Thank you,” she says, taking them, accepting the offered apology. She doesn’t blame him, she’d heard Fisk’s man threatening to make a call to Betsy’s captors if Melvin didn’t hit her.

“You need to talk to them, give me a call,” Frank says.

“Yeah, about that -“ Mattie pulls her burner - the one Steve gave her - out of her hoodie pocket and tosses it to Frank. “Last phone got burned with the suit, need you to put your number in that one.”

“The suit got burned?” That’s Melvin, professionally affronted.

“Sorry,” Mattie mumbles.

Melvin starts grabbing tools around the workshop, asking Betsy to help him. “I’ll make you a new one,” he says.

“Don’t.” Melvin and Betsy stop. “It’s - not now. The suit…it was a symbol. It meant something, more than me. But now, all anyone wants to do is tear the mask off me.”

“So don’t wear one,” Melvin says. “Let them all know who’s looking out for them.”

She huffs out a chuckle, humourless. “It’s not that easy.”

Melvin puts his hand on her shoulder, then turns away. “Betsy, there’s a bolt of cloth behind you? The one in red.”

“This gonna take long?” says Frank.

“Just…need to grab some things.”

“Take your time.” Frank’s hand is on Mattie’s back, leading her out the back door. They stand in the autumn night, and Mattie can feel the moisture from the rain coming. “Might as well let him,” Frank says. “Bit of armor never hurt anyone.”

“Yeah, probably,” Mattie says. She leans against the wall. Frank holds out something in his hand.

“This is your boyfriend’s, by the way.”

She takes it from him. It’s a comm.

“Thanks.”

She tucks it into her pocket.

“How’re you doing?” he says.

“Broken nose, bruised ribs. Disappointing, really. The Russians did worse to me without having to tie me up.”

She doesn’t say “thank you.” They’re past that sort of thing.

“He’s gunning for you, isn’t he?” Frank says instead. She doesn’t need to ask who he’s talking about.

“He sent someone after Foggy, and now he’s tried to take out both me and Steve.” She tilts her head back, feeling the droplets on her face. “My guess is he negotiated some sort of deal for his appeal if he could deliver Captain America. Hopefully, we fucked that up.”

“Yeah.” He crosses his arms. “What about the press?”

She shrugs. “Not sure,” she says. It’s the truth.

“Yeah, well, you need me, you call.” He holds out her burner to her. She squeezes the phone in her hand.

“What’s he like? In Ryker’s?”

Frank shrugs, more eloquently than any words. “He’s the Kingpin,” he says. It’s all she needs to hear.

Melvin and Betsy emerge from the shop at that point, Melvin carrying a bolt of cloth over one shoulder, and a bag of tools over the other. Betsy has a bag of clothes, and Frank leads them to his truck. Mattie doesn’t move, just raises her hand when Melvin turns back to her. He nods to her, and climbs in the truck, then Frank drives them away.

Steve is still asleep when she slips back into her apartment, and she remembers the soup Steve made. Her stomach growls, reminding her that she hasn’t eaten since yesterday. She ladles herself a bowl and heats it in the microwave, wincing at the loud beeping it makes. Steve stirs in the bedroom. She carries the bowl to her kitchen table, and she’s scarfing it down as the bedroom door slides open. Steve comes around behind her and kisses the top of her head.

“Feeling better?” he says.

“Yeah. This is really good.” She grins as he takes the other chair. “Is this a genuine Depression-era recipe?”

“Nah, that would have about one chicken wing and half a carrot, and taste like dishwater. This is Clint’s, I got the recipe off him a while back.”

“Hm. Well, good job.” She finishes the bowl. “Checked on Melvin and Betsy. They’re fine. Frank got them out.”

Steve nods, and doesn’t say anything as she washes the bowl and spoon. When she’s finishing, he goes to her, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind, and she tilts her head back to rest her ear against his chest. She never realized how much she misses the sound of his slow, steady heartbeat against her ear.

“You can’t stay here,” she says. “Not with the press breathing down my neck.”

He nods, his cheek against her hair.

“I’ll stay at Clint’s,” he says.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Until this whole Fisk thing is over.”

She snorts inelegantly. “I don’t think it’s ever going to be over.” _Until one of us is dead._

His arms tighten around her. “Until he’s not actively trying to kill you, then.” She can hear the smile in his voice.

She pulls away from him, then, going to the bedroom, getting undressed, climbing into bed, while all the while part of her is screaming at him to _get away, get as far away as you can._

_I’m poison_ , she’d told him. It feels like a lifetime ago, and she’s had a good few months where it didn’t have to be true, but she’s been proved right. Again.

Steve gets into bed next to her, and his thumb smooths over her forehead, between her furrowed eyebrows. He whispers “hey, hey,” and shifts them so that they’re lying on their sides facing each other.

“Stop thinking that,” he says.

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“You’re thinking that you’re going to get me arrested. Or killed.”

“Well -“

“No,” he says, and there’s a note of command in his voice. “Been getting myself into scrapes since before your grandmother was born. You think you’re gonna stop me?”

She allows herself a little grin, feeling the split in her lip pull. “Just don’t want Bucky to get mad at me.”

“He’ll say something about my thick skull. And sense being knocked into it.”

She does laugh, and he kisses her forehead, gently, gingerly. She brushes her hand over his cheek, raking her nails against his beard, and sliding her fingertips against his lips. He kisses the pad of her finger, and she can smell his arousal, but he pulls her hand away.

“Shouldn’t,” he mumbles. “Your ribs.”

“They’re _bruised_ , not broken.” She swings herself upright, straddling his lap, and pulls off her t-shirt. “And I’m not passing this up.”

Her ribs hurt, but she won’t admit it, as she mounts him. She doesn’t mind; she uses the pain to focus, the way she does when she fights. Keeps her head clear when the pleasure is overwhelming, holds off her orgasm until she can feel Steve on the brink, and lets go at the same moment, both of them collapsing into a sweaty, boneless heap together.

Steve leaves just before sunrise, a gust of cold air blowing down the stairs as he lets himself out.

In the wake of the kidnapping, the media story surrounding Mattie changes. Suddenly, there are sycophantic profiles of her, detailing her “tragic” story, her “star-crossed” romance, her “crusading” legal career. Mattie notes a subtle shift in the way the Castle and Cage cases are discussed; a softening in tone, perhaps, or an increase in sympathy for the vigilantes (particularly the handsome, good-natured Luke). And the Sokovia Accords are suddenly presented as the threat to constitutional rights that Mattie has maintained they are. As an added bonus, the press seem to take her requests for privacy seriously, and the crowd around her building disappear.

In the middle of it all, Foggy’s assailant disappears from the hospital. The kidnappers plea bargain their way into lesser sentences.

The _Globe_ is excoriated for irresponsible journalism, lambasted for printing their allegations without solid evidence (Karen writes a few of _those_ articles), and accused of placing her in danger. The _Globe_ ’s editor is forced to apologize, and their board makes a substantial donation to the Storefront.

It’s enough that Mattie can afford to make Jen Walters an offer of a full-time position. Jen accepts, and Mattie takes her out for dinner to celebrate with most of the Storefront staff.

There’s quite a bit of wine, and Mattie’s relaxed enough that instead of going home, she takes the subway out to Brooklyn. Steve, Sam and Nat are watching a movie, so she curls up with her head in Steve’s lap, letting them describe the action to her.

“You seem happy,” Steve says as they retreat to the bedroom once the movie is over.

“Yeah.”

He runs his thumb over her face, testing her wounds. She’d taken the bandage off her nose a few days ago, and the swelling is down on her lip. She’s been assured that the black eye has faded to green.

“You think we’re in the clear?” he says.

She hesitates. “I don’t know. He could have a million other moves up his sleeve, but we can’t live our lives being afraid that he _might_ do something.”

He nods. “I’ll have Nat look and see where we can go.”

He takes her back to Hell’s Kitchen, slipping into the apartment through the roof door, and stays the night.

In the morning, she’s getting dressed while he showers, when her phone rings. Unknown number.

“Mattie Murdock.”

“Miss Murdock, so glad I caught you,” comes a familiar voice she can’t place, but which sends a prickle down the back of her neck. “Ben Donovan, I represent Wilson Fisk.”

She remembers. She remembers he stood by while Fisk choked her in the visitation room.

“What do you want?” she snaps.

“My client would like to speak with you,” he says smoothly, ignoring her hostility. She hears Steve turn off the shower. “About your recent…difficulties.”

She swallows her furious retort.

“Why?” is all she says.

“He believes he can be of assistance to you.”

_He can by stopping trying to hurt the people I love._

“Miss Murdock?”

“When?”

“Ten o’clock. Our previous agreement regarding your conversation will still stand. Don’t be late.”

He hangs up. Mattie throws the phone across the room. Fortunately, it hits the wall and bounces onto the bed, not breaking.

Steve rushes in, a towel around his waist.

“What happened?” he says.

“Fisk,” she spits. “He wants to see me.”

She hears him draw in a breath, sharp.

“What’s he planning?” he says.

“I don’t know.” _I have to go. I have to when he holds all the cards._ “But if there’s any way I can get him to stop going after everyone around me, I have to do it.”

“Then take someone with you. Foggy, or Karen -“ 

“He won’t see me if I’m not alone.” She runs her hands through her hair, tugging at her scalp.

He nods and puts his arms around her.

“I’ll be here when you’re done,” he says.

When she gets out of the car to Ryker’s, she realizes she’s been clenching her fists around her cane the whole way. Her jaw is tight, too, and she forces her muscles to relax.

_Can’t fight back if you can’t move._

Donovan is waiting for her at the visitor’s entrance. He offers her his arm, a parody of chivalry, and neither of them say a word after he identifies himself to her. Her belongings are held at the scanner, and Donovan makes her sign the non-disclosure agreement again. He leads her into the prison, and she notes the guards who nod to Donovan. Fisk’s men.

He’s sitting in the middle of the visitation room, the same table as before, still shackled for show. He shifts, minutely, in the chair, and she hears it creak under his bulk. He hasn’t gotten much larger, though, so the weight must be muscle.

“Miss Murdock, thank you for coming,” Wilson Fisk says. Always the gentleman. Always courteous. Always civil, on the surface. She wonders which she hates more: the facade, or the animal underneath.

“Mr Fisk.” _Don’t give him anything._ She sits, crossing her legs.

“You’ve made quite a name for yourself since we last met,” he says. “I’ve been…very interested in your career. Champion of the…vigilantes, the superheroes, and the downtrodden.” She notes the disdain with which he says it.

“I’m just doing my job.”

“Yes. And yet, I can’t help but notice that you have had some…difficulty, lately.”

“You mean being kidnapped?” she snaps. “Pity that your appeal agreement fell through.”

“Yes, that was…unfortunate. As was the attempt on Mr Nelson’s life,” he says smoothly. “Which you prevented.”

“You’ve been reading the _Globe_ too much.”

“I’m merely fortunate that they were willing to read the package I had sent to them. Six dollars in postage,” he spits at her.

“That was pure conjecture.”

“Of course it was, Miss Murdock. But I have found…reporters have a way of presenting conjecture as truth. Especially when their own suspicions are confirmed. And _particularly_ when it has the advantage of being true.” She tells her face to stay blank, to not give anything away, when her heart starts beating wildly. “But the question now is what to do with the real evidence.”

His heart is beating steady. He’s not lying.

“My contacts in Japan were very helpful,” he continues. “Very happy to assist after what you did to Nobu. Again. They were very detailed in their information. Your mentor, Stick. Your…girlfriend. Natchios. And, of course, the orphaned blind girl Stick trained in New York.”

_Anger is a weapon. Rage is a wildfire. Get a hold of yourself._ She wishes she could lunge across, jab her fingers in his throat and hear him gurgle his last breath.

“So, Miss Murdock, I give you a choice.” Fisk nods at Donovan, who places papers in front of her. She runs her hand over it, and reads “contract of employment” at the top.

“What the hell is this?”

“A job offer, Miss Murdock. And while I will admit that there would be some satisfaction in seeing you arrested and disbarred, I have always been a practical man. Having a woman of your talents incarcerated would be a waste. No, Miss Murdock, you are going to work for me. I’m sure you are aware that my appeal will go to trial next week. You will join Mr Donovan on my legal team, and you will make _every_ effort to see that I am acquitted. And once I am…free of this place, then we will discuss how your other abilities will be of use to me.”

She shoves the contract away from her as if it’s on fire.

“Why don’t you get this over with and just kill me?” she snaps.

“Miss Murdock, do you really think I want you dead? No. If you do not sign, then by the time you exit this building, Secretary Ross will know your identity. I expect there will be federal agents waiting at your home and your work to arrest you. By the time you reach Manhattan, Franklin Nelson will be dead. By this time tomorrow, your legal clinic will be nothing more than a pile of rubble, with your colleagues inside.” Donovan leans over and pushes the contract back to her and puts a pen down with an audible click.

Last time she’d sat here, he’d broken his shackles and choked her almost to unconsciousness. She’d fought back, scratching at him, and when he’d let her go, she’d known she’d lost another battle. It had been crushing, humiliating, then.

That was nothing compared to this.

“Mr Donovan, please show Miss Murdock where to sign,” Fisk says.

She picks up the pen, and Donovan places it on the page.

She signs.


	4. Where're Those Angels When You Need 'Em?

“I can’t _believe_ you signed it!”

That’s Foggy. He’s been yelling at Mattie for a full ten minutes. Steve doesn’t think he’s even stopped for breath.

They’re all assembled in Mattie’s apartment. Steve called in his reinforcements (in the form of Sam and Nat) when Mattie told him what had happened, and they’d shown up just after Foggy had launched into his diatribe.

Steve opens his mouth to interrupt, but Sam catches his eye, and almost imperceptibly shakes his head. Steve closes his mouth.

Foggy’s yelling something about a martyr complex. Privately, Steve agrees with him.

It’s almost funny; Steve’s image of Foggy had been the cheerful, good-hearted guy who hadn’t known what to do with his hand after Steve shook it. When Mattie had talked about Foggy being fearsome in the courtroom, Steve had assumed she was exaggerating out of affection. After all, how scary could a guy named Foggy be?

Turns out, Foggy is a goddamn oratorical warrior. Mattie has barely been able to get in a word edgewise.

“How could you even _think_ I’d be OK with you doing this?!” he shouts.

“I was trying to save your life!” she shouts back.

“I do _not_ need you to save me, _you’re_ the one who needed us to rescue you from him!”

And more of the same. It takes about another ten minutes before they lapse into furious silence.

“You done?” Steve says. Foggy glares at him. Mattie scowls. “You can’t stay here, not with Fisk blackmailing you. Pack a bag, come with us, we’ll be out of the country in a few hours.”

“And Fisk makes the call that has Foggy killed,” Mattie snaps. “I can’t leave.”

“Fuck - I can take care of myself!” Foggy starts.

“Against a sniper bullet?!”

Steve watches as Foggy’s fury crumbles as he absorbs the enormity of the threat.

“You can’t represent him,” Foggy says, almost pleading. “He killed Elena and Ben.”

“I know,” she says, all steel. “I won’t let him have you, too.”

And that takes the last of the wind out of Foggy’s sails, and he slumps into the armchair behind him.

“OK, so we find some legal excuse for you to recuse yourself -“ he says.

“You’re not getting it, Foggy. I do _anything_ to get out of this, and you’re dead.”

“Yeah, well what does _my_ life mean, Mattie?” he says quietly. “Because I’ll tell you this. If Mattie Murdock ever compromises her integrity, her _entire moral compass_ because of me, then the answer is ‘my life means nothing.’”

For a moment, Steve could believe that the whole world is holding its breath.

Mattie breaks the stillness by dropping to her knees in front of Foggy and wrapping her arms around him. She murmurs something in his ear as he hugs her back.

“I’ll figure something out,” she says, sitting back on her heels. “Just…” She runs her hands through her hair. “I need time to think. And a drink.”

“Yeah, I think we could all use one,” Sam says, and the tension finally diffuses. Steve shows Sam Mattie’s liquor cabinet, and Natasha pulls the vodka out of the freezer while Sam pours the rest of them whiskey.

“What happens to you if Fisk loses his appeal?” Steve ventures.

Mattie shrugs. “I’m probably stuck with this contract whether he’s in jail or not.”

“But it would buy us some time.” _Keep him away from you._

“Yeah.”

“I can see if I can dig up new evidence,” Natasha says. “Is there anything we can connect him to that he wasn’t charged with?”

“Ben,” Foggy says bitterly.

“And you,” Mattie says, sitting up straighter. “The woman who attacked you, Mary Mallon -“

“Fake name,” interrupts Nat.

“- she’s the one who killed Hoffman. If we can connect her -“

“And what about the guys who kidnapped you?” says Sam. “Aren’t they still in custody?”

“Not talking,” Foggy says.

“That can change,” says Nat in that placid tone of hers that Steve knows belies the danger underneath.

“What about Frank?” says Foggy, but Mattie interrupts him by suddenly standing up.

“I do _not_ have time for this,” she growls, but not at any of them in particular. She steps over Sam’s feet and rushes up the stairs. The rest of them exchange dumbfounded looks, then Steve leads them up the stairs after her.

He’s half-expecting her to be a rooftop away, but instead, she’s got her hands on her hips, squaring off with an old man in an army-green jacket. A _blind_ old man.

Steve’s only aware of one blind old man who would suddenly appear on Mattie’s rooftop.

“Stick?” he says.

“Oh, good, the gang’s all here,” drawls Stick. “Thought you were past this, Mattie.”

“Things changed,” she snaps.

“Bagged yourself a bona fide superhero?” Stick’s voice is dripping with disdain. “Jesus Christ.”

“Son,” Steve starts, and he’s _pretty_ sure that he’s older than Stick, “you’re going to talk to her with more respect.”

He derives some satisfaction from the fact that Stick actually seems at a loss for words.

“Why are you here?” Mattie says.

Stick spreads his arms. “You haven’t noticed? The Hand, Mattie, don’t you pay attention?”

“What about them?”

“‘What about them?’” Stick mocks. “Jesus, Mattie, your own back yard -“

“They’ve been quiet since -“ she cuts herself off. Mentally, Steve finishes the sentence. _Since Elektra died._

“You really think a centuries-old ninjutsu murder cult is gonna stay down just because you took out one of their pawns?”

“I don’t give a fuck what they’ve been up to since then, as long as they’ve been keeping out of Hell’s Kitchen,” she says, and Steve knows she’s lying. There’s a USB full of intelligence that he gathered for her that says otherwise.

“You were always a shit liar, Mattie,” says Stick.

“And she’s had better things to do than fight your war,” Steve says. He can feel it, the rage that drove him from Florida to a basement in New Jersey, rising.

“What, trading polite little arguments over whether _you’re_ a menace?”

“Her _work_ is important,” Foggy says. Steve notes that they’ve fanned out behind Mattie, none of them willing to let Stick take her down.

“Yeah, ‘boo hoo, the government says I can’t punch the assholes who deserve it.’”

“That’s Tony’s line, these days,” remarks Nat. Her eyes are narrowed at Stick, which Steve knows is a very dangerous sign.

“This is _war_ , Mattie,” Stick says, “and you’re on the front lines. If you’re waiting for _permission_ -“

“I’m not waiting for anything,” Mattie snaps, “except for you to actually give me one _shred_ of information about this war you’ve been talking about my entire life.” She steps up so that she’s nose to nose with Stick. “You want me to fight? Then tell me why Elektra died.”

“You know why, Mattie.”

It’s not the right answer, because Mattie throws the first punch. Stick blocks it easily, and then they’re fighting, right there on the roof. Steve wonders if he should step in, but then he realizes what he suspects Stick must have already known: Mattie needs this. She needs to fight _someone_ , she needs to feel in control, at least for a moment. He takes a step back. Nat throws him a puzzled glance, while Sam has a hand on Foggy’s shoulder, holding him back.

The fight ends with Mattie throwing Stick to the ground, her hand on his throat. And he laughs.

“Better,” he says.

“Had a good sparring partner,” she says. She steps back, letting Stick up. “Why are you here?”

“It’s the Hand. They’ve got Ellie.” Stick rolls to his feet, and Steve watches the play of emotions on Mattie’s face, the shadows of the night hiding most of them.

“She’s dead,” she says.

“You know better than that.”

And Mattie’s face transforms from a mask of indifference to pure horror.

“They wouldn’t…”

“One of their precious Black Skies? They’d do a whole lot more.”

“OK, what the hell are you talking about?” says Foggy.

“I think we better go inside,” says Mattie. She turns and heads down the stairs, leaving the rest of them on the roof. There’s an awkward moment.

“Uh, yeah…” Foggy says, and he follows her. Stick makes to go after him, but he’s felled by a kick from Natasha as he tries to pass her.

“I have _strong_ opinions about men who use little girls as weapons,” she snarls to the blind man on the ground before she follows Foggy. Steve decides that he agrees with her, and nods to Sam, and they both head down the stairs, leaving Stick to bring up the rear.

Mattie is already pouring fresh glasses of whiskey. Steve wishes he could get drunk. She fishes a fresh glass out of a cupboard and pours the whiskey into it for Stick. He’s unimpressed.

“Piss,” he says.

“See, now I know you’re scared,” she says. “You’re lying to me.” Stick has nothing to say to that. “Talk.”

There’s a pregnant pause.

“You think you know what the Hand are,” Stick begins.

“I know that they’ve been working to gain power since the 1500s,” she says. Steve puffs a little. She got that from _his_ intelligence-gathering. “And they’ve become more of a cult as time went on. Worshipping a demon.”

“The Beast,” Stick says. “You hear about the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven?”

Mattie’s brow furrows. “They’re a myth. ‘The Beast seeks to destroy the Seven Capital Cities,’ it’s a classic Manichean dichotomy.”

“Yeah, just happens to be true.” Stick takes a sip of whiskey. “The Seven Capital Cities exist. You’ve met one of their representatives. Heard she calls herself Gao these days.” Mattie raises her head at that. “One of the Capital Cities will open its doors soon, and the Hand want to be there when it does.”

“And they need a Black Sky for that.”

Stick nods. “To fight the champion of K’un Lun. The Immortal Iron Fist.”

“Really?” says Sam. He’s at the bottom of his glass. Mattie passes him the bottle. Steve notices that Foggy also takes a refill.

“The goal here is to stop them before it comes to that,” snaps Stick.

“By killing children?” Mattie snaps.

“By _keeping_ the Black Sky out of the Hand’s control.”

“What does this have to do with Elektra?” says Foggy, and Steve realizes that Mattie probably hasn’t shared the details of the last year with him.

“Elektra was a Black Sky,” Steve says.

“And they’ve stolen her body,” Mattie says. “And put her in the resurrection chamber, same as Nobu.” There’s a hard edge to her voice that Steve can imagine like a sword in the darkness.

“No, not like Nobu,” Stick says. “Nobu was a true believer. Ellie…she’s gonna be more work for them.”

“What does that mean?” says Steve.

Stick sighs, as if explaining was a chore. Steve decides he really, truly hates this man. “Resurrection requires sacrifice, kid.”

“I know,” interrupts Mattie. “I found them in cages.”

“Yeah, well, there’re rituals to bind the dead to your will. More blood, more sacrifice. End result -“

“You get a mind-controlled zombie?” says Sam.

“Who also happens to be your living weapon,” finishes Mattie. “How do we stop it?”

“Get to the Resurrection Chamber,” says Stick, as if it were obvious.

“The big sarcophagus thing?”

Stick sighs again, long-suffering. “Yes, Mattie, that thing.”

“And then what?”

Stick shrugs. “Smash it, cut the blood lines, kill the sacrifices, anything to interrupt the ritual.”

She nods. “It’s still at 44th and 11th?”

Steve stares at her, and sees Foggy glance up as well.

“Elena’s building?” Foggy says over Stick’s “Yeah.”

“It’s why Fisk was so keen on getting it,” Mattie says tightly, standing up. “Let’s go.”

“You don’t have a suit,” Foggy points out.

“I’ll stop by yours and pick up the old one. Anyone else in?”

There’s a general nodding from the ex-Avengers.

“Not so fast,” Stick says, his cane striking out to hit Mattie in the chest. She parries it with her hand.

“Of course,” Mattie says.

“We need to find out where Gao’s standing on this. Otherwise, we could be dealing with a war on two fronts.”

“I know where to find her.”

“Not anymore, you don’t. Gonna take some work to find her.”

Steve can see Mattie seething with frustration. If there’s anything that Mattie Murdock will never admit, it’s being overwhelmed.

“Foggy’s right, you shouldn’t be going out without a suit,” Steve says, standing up. “We’ll go with Stick, you deal with Fisk.” He wonders if his heart gives away the little lie. 

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Mattie says.

“I know.” He leans in and kisses her. “That’s why I’m offering.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Stick roll his eyes. _And I’ll be able to keep him away from you._

“Jesus,” mutters Stick.

“Foggy?” Steve says, ignoring Stick. “You guys see if you can come up with something to get Mattie out from that contract. I’ll be back later.” Mattie looks like she’s about to protest, so Steve steps in, his hand on her neck. “The law stuff isn’t really our thing, so let _us_ take care of the hitting people part while you figure that out.”

She sighs. “OK.”

Steve glances around. “Let’s go.”

They move mostly in silence over the rooftops down into Chinatown as the sun sets. Every so often, Stick will pause and sniff the air. Sometimes he changes direction, sometimes not. He doesn’t share his logic with the rest of them. Steve would find it frustrating, if Natasha didn’t nod down to the street. Steve realizes that they’re working their way through a network of drug dealers and contacts, following the threads of the web to the centre.

They perch on a rooftop opposite a warehouse of some sort, but Stick just huffs.

“She’s not there,” he grumbles.

Steve doesn’t bother to ask if Stick is sure this is the right place. A glance exchanged with Nat tells him that she’s sure, and that’s good enough for him.

“We can set up surveillance,” Steve says. “Sam?”

“Gimme some time to get back to Brooklyn, I can send Redwing over in a couple of minutes, set him up right here,” Sam says.

“Take Nat and the car, I’ll head up to Mattie as soon as Redwing’s set up.”

“Shouldn’t be more than an hour,” Nat says.

“You don’t need that fancy shit,” says Stick.

“What, you’re just going to sit here all night?” Sam says.

“If this Gao woman isn’t here right now, we can put that time to use,” Steve says.

“You’re welcome to stay and keep Redwing company instead,” Nat says, sharp edges around her words.

“We can call you when Redwing pings us,” Steve says, before Nat starts in on Stick again. “You got a phone?”

He’s half-expecting Stick to say no. Instead, Stick pulls out a phone that’s roughly an inch thick. The tiny screen is green only, no graphics.

“That thing still works?” says Sam. "Even Steve's got a better phone."

“I think it’s older than I am,” says Nat.

“They just don’t make ‘em like they used to,” says Stick smugly.

“What’s the number?” Steve says. He programs it into his own phone. “OK, you two, get going.” Sam and Nat nod, and leave with a final glare at Stick from Nat.

The silence descends as Steve sits overlooking the warehouse, while Stick sits cross-legged with his back to the half-wall. The old man closes his eyes, his back straight, and his breathing slows. Steve glances over him, and thinks of all the things he wants to say to this man.

_She doesn’t belong to you. She doesn’t need you, either._

After an interminable length of time, Stick breaks the silence.

“You got something to say, kid?”

Part of Steve wants to snap back “I’ve got nothing to say to you.” But that would be a waste.

“She’s told me a lot about you,” he says. “About what you did to her.”

“Yeah? What’d I do to her?”

“You’ve been manipulating her since she was ten years old. Trying to tear her away from anything that actually made her feel like a human being.”

“I don’t need a _human being_ ,” says Stick, his voice dripping with sarcasm on the words. “She’s a soldier -“

“No, she’s not,” says Steve, and he didn’t even notice the Captain America voice creeping in. “Soldiers don’t have to be bullied into fighting. And not when they’re children.”

Stick makes a cynical little chuckle. “Thought she knew better than to get involved with someone like you.” Steve narrows his eyes, then remembers that Stick can’t see it. “Soft.”

Steve thinks of a sick bed in Depression-era Brooklyn, of cold nights sleeping rough with the Howlies, of battles against aliens, of Sam guessing correctly the reason he couldn’t sleep. He doesn’t mention any of those. He doesn’t have to.

“Son,” he says, “if you’re talking about what I’ve lived through, then I suggest you check my Wikipedia page. It’s got a lot of good details.” He lowers his voice. “But if you’re talking about my feelings for Mattie, then you can keep it to yourself, because you’re wrong. Letting yourself be soft doesn’t make you weak.”

They lapse back into silence.

Redwing descends on their rooftop, and Steve sets up the little drone with the camera facing the building opposite. He holds his thumb up in front of the camera.

“We’re good to go,” he tells Stick, and then starts off across the rooftops towards Hell’s Kitchen, not bothering to see if Stick leaves.

Mattie is asleep on the couch, dressed in sweats and a hoodie. Her laptop is open on the coffee table, the screen off. He grins and puts his hand on her shoulder, intending on carrying her to bed, but her arm snaps up, and he finds himself on his back on the floor, Mattie’s arm across his throat, and her knee on his chest.

“Jesus, Steve, I’m sorry!” she says, scrambling away.

“It’s OK,” he laughs, but he sees the look on her face. “Hey, I’m OK, takes a lot worse to hurt me.”

“Shit, I’m sorry, I’m just -“

“On edge?”

“Yeah.”

He scoots over to her and puts his arms around her. She leans her forehead against his chest, and grips his shirt, giving a frustrated groan. She breaks out of his embrace, leaning her back against the couch and running her hands through her hair.

“No luck?” he says.

She shakes her head. “You?”

“Found where she’s heading up her operation, but she’s not there. Left Redwing to monitor the building.” He hesitates.

“And?”

_Dammit._ She always knows when he’s holding back.

“Had a talk with Stick,” he says, trying to keep his voice neutral.

“That must have been weird,” she says, leaning her head back, tilting her face up to the ceiling.

“Yeah, like talking to your father, if he were horrible.”

She lifts her head off the cushion. “He’s not like my father.”

“I know. Sorry, bad analogy.”

Her hand reaches up and runs over his hair. “My dad was giving me Captain America comics when I was six,” she says softly. “He kept a picture of you in his locker. I think it would have blown his mind to meet you.”

“Let alone find out about us?”

“Yeah.”

He puts his arm around her waist, pulling her close. “Wish I could have met him.”

“Me too.”

She leans her head on his shoulder, and he listens to her breathing.

“My _entire_ life, I’ve had men trying to control me,” she says. “But not him. He just wanted me to make something of myself.”

“He’d be proud of you.”

“Honestly, I don’t know _what_ he’d think of me right now.”

He kisses the top of her head.

“How come you didn’t know it was me?” he says, suddenly puzzled.

“Hm?”

“When I came in? Didn’t I wake you up?”

“Oh, no, not until you touched my shoulder. That was kind of why I freaked out, I’m used to getting woken up by anything…you know, potentially threatening.”

“I’m potentially threatening?”

She pokes his leg. “No,” she says, amused, and then she pauses and repeats it quietly. “No.”

And Steve realizes what she’s not saying. _She feels safe with you._

He leans down and kisses her, long and slow and gentle and _soft_. She climbs onto his lap, and he keeps the pace slow, lingering, savoring, enjoying.

_Being soft doesn’t mean being weak._ Sometimes, it’s all you can do to make a hard world bearable.

Eventually, she leads him into the bedroom, and he’s surrounded by soft sheets and soft skin, soft kisses and soft movements. He spoons her as she falls asleep, safe in his arms.

_Not a perfect soldier, but a good man._

It was what Erskine had asked him to be, seventy-four years ago. What Erskine had thought the world needed. And he’d tried to live up to that. And Mattie, orphaned and blinded sixty years later, who knew nothing of Abraham Erskine except for brief mentions in history books, had somehow managed to live up to it, too.

He has breakfast on the East side with Sam and Nat after Mattie goes to work in the morning.

“So how’d it go with Grandpa Ninja?” says Sam.

“Had a good talk,” Steve says evenly. Natasha arches an eyebrow.

“And Mattie?” she says.

Steve shrugs and thinks about how fast she’d moved, taking him down. “She needs to focus on Fisk right now. So we’re going to handle the Stick side of things, and hopefully she won’t even need to get involved. Besides, this is our job, isn’t it? Saving the world?”

Sam takes a bite of pancakes. “What about Elektra?”

Steve takes a sip of coffee. “It’s not a call she should have to make.”

“Not your call to keep her out of it,” Nat says calmly.

Steve wants to bristle at that, but he meets Nat’s steady green gaze, and remembers that arguing with her is well nigh on impossible. A glance at Sam tells him that Sam agrees with Nat. Steve settles for sullenly poking at his eggs.

“On the subject of Fisk,” Nat says, pulling a USB out of her pocket, “got this for Mattie. Surveillance camera on the HC&B building got a few good shots of the pyrokinetic. It’s definitely the same woman who killed Mattie’s client, and I compared it to some outstanding warrants with fire-related damage, and I think I’ve got an ID and a current location. Mary Walker, hiding out in the Bronx.”

“That’s great, she’ll be really happy,” says Steve.

Nat puts the USB on the table.

“I say this as someone whose cover’s been blown a few times,” she says. “Once a hostile knows, the best plan is to call it and get the hell out.”

“She won’t leave Foggy.”

Nat nods at the USB. “We have enough evidence to get him some protection. The feds know Foggy, they’re the ones who built the case against Fisk.” She shrugs. “Or there’s another option.”

“What?”

“Tony still needs a decent lawyer.” She smirks, but the thought only fills Steve with sadness.

“Mattie’s called in enough favors from Tony already,” he says.

Nat decides that she wants to keep digging around Fisk, so they set themselves up in a Starbucks just outside of Chinatown. Sam and Steve buy drinks and argue about movies while Nat works. Redwing pings them every time someone enters the building, and Sam checks the images.

Mid-afternoon, he holds up his phone to Steve. A small, elderly Asian woman is entering the warehouse, flanked by tall men.

“That’s her. Tell Stick,” Steve says, and they head out, suiting up in an alley before landing on the roof. Stick is waiting for them. Steve doesn’t know if he’s bothered to leave the rooftop.

“She’s in there,” Stick says.

“We know,” Steve says. Sam picks up Redwing, and the little drone flies up in an arc over his head, fixing itself to the center of Sam’s wingpack. “Hostiles?”

“Mostly on the main floor, there’s about twenty in there, but given what we saw on surveillance, I’m going to guess only half of those are combatants,” Sam says.

“He’s right,” growls Stick begrudgingly.

Ten combatants, ten unknown. They’ve dealt with far worse odds, but Steve thinks hard before he tells them the plan.

Stick doesn’t like it.

Steve doesn’t care.

He knocks on the front door. It opens a tiny crack, and a suspicious eye peers out.

“We’re here to talk to your boss,” Steve says.

“No boss here,” says the person on the other side of the door, slamming it shut. Steve hammers on the door again. It doesn’t open, so he just shouts.

“Not here to fight,” Steve says. “Just want to talk to Madam Gao.”

He can hear a commotion further into the building, panicked Mandarin being spoken. He glances at Nat, who nods. He hammers on the door again, and this time, it swings open. No-one is on the other side. They step in, through the small vestibule into the building. There’s a large main room, brightly lit with fluorescents, and a huddle of frightened people at the opposite end, barely shapes in the shadows.

“Captain,” says a woman’s authoritative voice, and Steve looks up. The small woman, Gao, is standing at a window above, flanked by men with guns. 

“Just want to talk, ma’am,” he calls.

“The man you came with is an enemy of mine,” she says. “As is the woman you love.”

“That’s why he’s not with us,” Steve says. Stick had opted to stay on the roof, although Steve is pretty sure he’s going to try something stupid. “I have no quarrel with you.”

He holds her gaze for a moment. Then she snaps something in Mandarin, and her bodyguards relax.

“Please, come upstairs,” she says.

Upstairs would have been the warehouse’s office. It’s sparsely decorated, but there is a table with a teapot and four cups in the middle of the room.

“You knew we were coming,” Nat says.

“We saw the Chaste’s man across the street several hours ago,” Gao says smoothly, sitting at the table and pouring tea. “When we recognized you, I hoped that this encounter would be more civilized than it would be with him.” She takes a sip of tea. Steve nods his head as he sits, and does the same.

“You know why Stick is in New York,” he says.

“I am aware of certain events coinciding.”

“The Hand intend to resurrect the Black Sky.”

“Yes.” There is no inflection in the word, no way to tell what her opinion is.

“We intend to help stop it.”

“Yes.”

“Stick implied that you might have an interest in the outcome.”

“Do we not all have an interest in the outcome, Captain?” she says.

“It’s not Captain anymore.”

“Apologies. But you understand my meaning. We all have an interest, where Black Skies are concerned. I do, you do, the Chaste, even your Daredevil.” She smiles. “Such a pretty girl.” She says something in Mandarin. Nat looks surprised, then translates.

“The flower that blooms in adversity is the most beautiful flower of all,” Nat says. Steve wrinkles his brow; he’s sure he’s heard that somewhere.

“That’s from _Mulan_ ,” Sam says, the resident Disney expert. Steve gives Gao a puzzled glance, and she starts to laugh.

“Very good,” she says. She switches languages as she addresses Nat. Nat answers back, and Steve recognizes that they’re speaking Russian.

“She says a lot of white people assume that whatever she says in Mandarin is some sort of mystical wisdom,” Nat says. She nods to Gao, a professional acknowledging a master. Gao graciously inclines her head.

“I can imagine,” says Steve.

“You have shown me courtesy, by not attempting violence on my people,” Gao says. “So I will show you courtesy. The Hand’s success or failure is no concern of mine. Our former alliance was one of convenience, mediated by a third party. If you insist on opposing them, you will find no interference from me.”

Steve nods, and stands.

“Thank you for your time, ma’am,” he says.

“The ritual is to conclude four days from now,” Gao says, taking a sip of tea. She could be discussing the weather, from her tone. “The timing is important. It is the first day that the gates between worlds will open. The Hand have chosen this day, for it is only when the doors are open that the Beast may come to them, taking control of the Black Sky.” She nods, dismissing them.

Steve feels a shiver run down his spine.

“Thank you,” he says.

Outside, Stick is gone. Steve suspects he listened to the whole conversation.

He sends Sam and Nat back to Bed-Stuy, and heads back up to Hell’s Kitchen. He finds Mattie’s USB on the Hand, and starts sifting through the historical data and current intelligence they’d dug up in Japan. He briefly regrets not bringing Nat back, since she’s better at this, but he suspects she’ll be doing the same thing anyway.

Four days from now is the day after the first day of Fisk’s appeal. Steve wonders how much Fisk knows.

Mattie comes home white as a sheet, her lips pressed together in anger.

“Donovan called me down to his office,” she spits. “Get me up to speed.” She throws her shoe across the living room, denting the drywall. “I can’t do this, Steve, it’s all the dirty unethical things I said I’d never do -“

He puts his arms around her, and she balls up her fists on the back of his shirt before breaking away. She pulls an envelope out of her bag, and Steve opens it. It’s a check, signed by Wilson Fisk.

“That’s a lot of zeroes,” he says.

“I know.” She snatches it back, slamming it on the table. Her hand tightens into a fist, crumpling it. Steve touches her shoulder, but she brushes him off. He pulls the USB out of his pocket and puts on the table in front of her.

“Nat got something for you. She’s ID’d Mary Mallon. There are a whole bunch of outstanding warrants on her, and Nat thinks she’s got a location.” He sits down. “We’re gonna get you out of this.”

She takes a deep breath. “You know what I really want?”

“What?”

“To go to Fogwell’s.”

Fogwell’s wraps around them, welcoming them as they step inside. Steve smiles as he runs his hand over the heavy bag, remembering how many he went through, those first few weeks. Steve plugs in his iPod as Mattie wraps her hands, and picks his Rolling Stones playlist.

For a few moments, they let the world fall away. It’s better than dancing. It’s almost as good as sex.

Steve wakes up in Mattie’s bed to find her side empty. He panics for a moment that she’s gone out, but she’s just sitting in the living room, her headphones connected to her laptop.

“You got a text,” she says, not turning her head.

Steve checks his phone. Nat has texted him about the Hand rituals.

“If it’s Nat, tell her thank you for digging up this stuff on Mary Walker,” Mattie says.

“Mattie, I need to tell you what Gao told us.” He summarizes the meeting with Gao. Mattie’s lips press together, and she nods.

“So, the Hand’s endgame is to have the Beast possess Elektra,” she says, her voice tight, holding her emotions down. “I thought it might be something like that. What’d Stick say?”

“He was gone by the time we left.”

“When’s the resurrection ritual over?”

“Four days.”

She nods. “Day after Fisk’s first day in court.”

“Look, you focus on Fisk, we’ll take care of the Hand -“

She’s shaking her head.

“No. That’s my fight, too. Can you hold off until then?” She turns her face up to him, lit from below by her computer screen. 

“Yeah, we can do that.”

She nods. “Good. Because I think I have a plan.”


	5. I Crucify Myself

Foggy had once said that Mattie Murdock planning anything was a terrifying concept. She is willing to admit that he’d been right. Most of the major events in her life have happened because of an impulse, a wild idea that had just popped into her head. Giving Steve his notebook, leaving Landman & Zack, following a pedophile to the train yard. Letting Elektra back into her life. Letting Steve Rogers love her.

Steve had nodded his approval of her plan to escape Fisk, and offered suggestions for improvement.

Foggy had sworn, and pleaded with her not to do it. And had hugged her fiercely.

The first day of Fisk’s appeal is crisp and cool. The breeze moves her hair.

“You always look like you have your own wind machine,” Foggy had said, a lifetime ago.

She can feel her adrenaline kicking in as she walks through the courthouse. She’s ten minutes late, deliberately so. Making an entrance.

Last night, Clint had called Steve.

“…so Laura wants all of you to come for Thanksgiving, and really, man, it would be great to see you.”

Steve had taken her hand and spoken for both of them. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

Plans. Beyond the next hour.

Down the hall, she can hear Donovan telling the judge that his second chair is running late. The judge is unimpressed. Mattie pushes both doors open.

“My apologies, the braille signage in this place really needs updating,” she announces to the courtroom. Fisk is fuming, Donovan’s adrenaline is up, and the judge sighs.

“I assume you’re Mattie Murdock for the defense?” the judge says.

“Yes. Well, no, actually, I’m afraid I’m forced to recuse myself from this case due to conflict of interest.” She strides down the aisle, stepping through the gate at the end, into the arena. There’s murmuring behind her. She ignores it.

Fisk’s heart starts beating faster. Donovan leans over and whispers that he did not know about this.

“Miss Murdock, I assume you will share this conflict of interest with us, or are you content to turn this courtroom into a circus?”

“Of course not, Your Honor,” Mattie says smoothly. She pulls out the three files in her bag and holds them out for the prosecuting attorney. She’d made certain they were in the right order when she packed them. “First of all, I allege that Mr Fisk had a former client of mine murdered in Seagate Prison, who was a key witness for the prosecution. Second, I allege that Mr Fisk ordered an assassination attempt on my former partner. These were perpetrated by the same employee of Mr Fisk, one Mary Walker, who is currently in custody at the 17th Precinct.” That had been Steve’s idea, asking Mike Sousa to arrest Mary Walker. Mattie can hear the prosecutors flipping through the files.

“Holy shit,” says the lead chair.

“And finally, I provided the prosecution with large amounts of their evidence in the original case, including assisting in the apprehension of Mr Fisk, placing me in direct conflict with his interests. The prosecution has my signed confession regarding my vigilante activities, especially those relevant to this case.” She turns around, addressing the crowd, some of whom have already started to put it together. “I’m Daredevil,” she says.

_And the crowd goes wild._

The only way to get rid of a blackmailer is to make his hold on you worthless.

Several reporters rush for the doors, others type frantically on their phones or pads. The judge pounds her gavel frantically. When the silence falls, Mattie smiles.

“Do you want me to repeat that under oath?” she says.

The prosecutors leap up, asking to approach the bench. The judge tries to order the bailiff to take Mattie into custody, but Mattie is approaching the defense’s table. She takes out the envelope with the cheque in it and slams it down in front of Fisk.

She doesn’t even have to say a word. Fisk grabs the front of her jacket, pulling her down so that they’re nose to nose.

“They’re dead,” he whispers, furious. “Nelson, Page, Temple, all dead.”

She smiles. She thinks of Jessica Jones, sitting in Foggy’s office, probably annoying the hell out of him right now.

She thinks of Frank Castle, setting up a nest on top of the _Bulletin_ ’s offices, ready to tail Karen wherever she needs to go.

She thinks of Luke Cage, settling in as the new receptionist of the Storefront Medical Clinic.

When she’d been kidnapped, five people had risked their lives to save her. And when she’d asked for help, no-one had even hesitated.

_I may not be able to see, but I’m not blind._

“Just try it,” she says. “My friends are waiting.”

The bailiff jumps in, trying to separate them, and Fisk backhands him, sending him flying. Fisk shoves Mattie back, his hand catching her chin, and she lands on her ass against the railing of the jury box. The world narrows down to her and him. Her glasses are gone. Doesn’t matter. They were just another mask.

She grins.

_Provoke him. Let them see who both of you really are._

“How many more years is that? Before you’ll be able to see her?”

Fisk roars and lunges at her, knocking the poor bailiff aside. She ducks his fist, slamming her own into his nose.

There was a reason she wore pants today.

_Don’t aim for the muscle. Aim where he’s vulnerable. Joints, face, throat._

He’s furious and erratic, and she’s calm. 

She kicks his knee out from under him. His fist comes in, knocking the air out of her. She twists, cartwheeling over his extended arm, grabs his shoulder and slams her knee into him, dislocating it. She flips backwards, kicking his chin back, and he falls, unconscious.

She’s allowed a moment, standing over him. She can hear the cameras on the reporters’ phones going off, heedless of the “no cameras” rule in the courtroom.

“Bailiff,” squeaks the judge, then she clears her throat, and repeats it, more controlled. “Please take Miss Murdock into custody.”

The bailiff hesitates, and Mattie smiles gently at him. She holds out her wrists.

“It’s OK,” she says.

The bailiff gingerly snaps the handcuffs onto her and leads her out, down to the prisoners’ holding area. Mattie can’t stop smiling as he uncuffs her. As he closes the cell door on her, she feels lighter than she has since she was nine years old.

It takes Brett Mahoney twenty minutes to get down to the courthouse. She hears him coming three floors away. The cell door swings open, and he steps in, letting it lock behind him.

“Is it true?” he says. She winces a little at the betrayal in his voice.

“Yeah,” she says.

He swallows. It’s deafening. “How?”

“Got a mask. Went out, beat up criminals. Got involved with the Fisk case when the Russians were still working for him.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He paces for a moment, then slams his hand into the wall opposite her. “You really blind?”

“Yes.” He huffs his disbelief. “You’ve got a flashlight in your pocket.”

“How did you -“

She waves her hand over her face. “Go ahead.”

He fishes the flashlight out, and crouches down in front of her. She hears him flashing the light into her eyes.

“Jesus,” he says. “I’ve _seen_ you. How do you…”

“Training,” she says. “You know how they say that when you lose one sense, the others are heightened?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not true. Generally. But for me, it was.”

He pauses, still crouched in front of her. “Does Foggy know?”

“No,” she lies. “You going to arrest me?” She’d like it to be him.

“Probably. They’re trying to figure out jurisdiction upstairs. We want you, feds want you…”

“Plenty of me to go around,” she says with a grin.

“And Counter-Terrorism wants you charged under the Sokovia Accords.”

“Yeah. That.” There’s something she needs to make very clear. “I want representation,” she says. “Jennifer Walters, she’s my colleague at the Storefront.” 

Yesterday, she’d signed the operation of the Storefront over to Jen, and officially resigned. She’d left a significant amount of her money in an operational fund for the clinic.

“Not Foggy?”

She shakes her head.

“Not Foggy,” she says.

He nods, standing up. “I’ll give her a call.”

Half an hour later, she hears voices arguing as a woman strides down the hallway to her cell.

“Counter-Terrorism can’t just -“

“I’ve got a pissed-off Secretary of State who wants to know where Steve Rogers and his crew are. She’s got intel for an ongoing investigation, she goes with us.”

The door to her cell slams open.

“Murdock, on your feet,” the woman snaps. Mattie stands, and she’s handcuffed and hustled down the hall by her elbow.

“I’ve requested representation,” she says.

“Yeah, this is gonna get real fun,” the woman says. She drags Mattie into the prisoner transfer area and deposits her in the back seat of a car. The cops are still arguing, and the woman tells them to call Secretary Ross. She climbs into the driver’s seat and starts the car.

When Mattie judges that they’re a few blocks away, she smiles again.

“Where’d you get the car?” she says, lifting up her legs so she can slide her cuffed hands under them.

“Counter-Terrorism’s parking lot has _terrible_ security,” Natasha says, pulling off her wig. “Especially when you’ve got a cloned key card.” They’d asked Sharon Carter for access to the Counter-Terrorism Task Force’s security database. It had been Natasha’s idea. “Here.”

She pushes a small key through the grille separating the front and back seats. Mattie unlocks the handcuffs.

“Heard from Stick, by the way,” Natasha says conversationally. “He…doesn’t want you to think that you can save Elektra.”

“Which means that it’s possible,” Mattie says.

“Presumably. We’re still looking into the rituals, see if there’s something specific we can do.” She turns a corner. “And your apartment’s scrubbed.” That had been Nat, Steve and Sam’s job this morning; eliminating any evidence that could lead investigators to them, or prove Foggy’s involvement. “Sam went to pick up your stuff from Foggy’s place.”

She turns off into a parking lot, and Steve and Sam are already waiting, Steve wrenching the back door of the car open, and pulling Mattie out. He presses her back against the side of the car and kisses her, both of them laughing a little.

“Guys, public place,” Sam says.

“No one can see us,” Nat says, making a shushing gesture.

Mattie and Steve laugh again against each other’s lips.

“How’re you doing?” Steve says.

“Good,” she says, putting her hand on his face. “I’m free.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This plot line, and this chapter in particular, owe a huge debt to Mark Waid's Sons of the Serpent arc. I'd be remiss if I didn't give it a shout-out.


	6. Drive Another Nail In

They celebrate.

They won’t be going up against the Hand for more than twenty-four hours, so they indulge themselves at Clint’s apartment. Not too much alcohol (don’t want to be hung over), but Nat orders pizza, and Steve buys pastries from a bakery that Sam describes as “hipster,” and Mattie chooses the music. Later, Steve won’t remember what they talked about. He’ll just remembers laughing a lot.

He’ll remember Mattie’s smile as she stretches out on the couch under the window, like a cat soaking up the sun.

He’ll remember leaning over and wiping the icing off Mattie’s lip after she bites into a pastry.

He’ll remember her laugh as she falls onto the bed, realizing that he’d already put her silk sheets down.

He’ll remember the way her body feels under his, the way she whispers “I love you,” the sounds she makes when she comes.

He’ll remember thinking, when he wakes up next to her, that any day that starts with a naked Mattie Murdock is going to be a good one.

He lies there as she stretches luxuriously, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“I know you’re awake,” she says, shifting so she can rest her head on his chest.

“You’re cheating.”

“No, cheating would be doing this…” She turns her head and bites his nipple. It’s _definitely_ cheating. He opens his eyes to see her smug grin as she crawls up to kiss him. It’s a long kiss, the kind that sets his skin on fire, but when she leans back, he just grins.

“Coffee?” he says, and she groans, and dives back in for another kiss. She’s very…aggressive this time, nipping at his bottom lip, her nails digging into his skin.

_Well, if she’s going to be like that…_

He runs his hands up her thighs and gives her ass a satisfying smack. She yelps, and grabs his arms, but he flips them so that she’s on her back, pinned under him. He ravages her mouth with his tongue, before moving to her neck, making her giggle from his beard against her skin.

“Was there something you wanted?” he whispers in her ear, before tugging on it with his teeth.

“Want you,” she manages to moan. He slips a hand between her legs. “Oh, God, please.”

Well, all she had to do was _ask_.

They emerge from the bedroom some time later to find that Sam has made coffee, and Nat has bought croissants. Sam has sent Redwing to monitor the Hand’s excavation site, while Nat is still trying to parse out the details of the ritual.

“Can’t see much below the surface,” Sam says as Steve leans over his shoulder to look at the live feed with a mug of coffee in his hand. “Infrared’s not giving us anything.”

“Bet that’s because most of them are dead,” says Mattie, as if this were perfectly normal. “No body heat.”

“Wait, so these are _zombie_ ninjas?”

“As far as I can tell. One of the ones who attacked the hospital last year had an autopsy scar.”

“ _Zombie ninjas_. We’re fighting magic zombie ninjas.”

“You keep saying it like that, it starts to sound absurd,” Mattie says coolly, taking a sip of coffee.

“Anything else we should know about them?” Steve says.

Mattie shrugs. “They fight the same as any living humans. Same vulnerabilities. They tend to coat their bladed weapons with poison, so don’t get stabbed or cut. And they can mask their heartbeats, but that’s probably not that relevant to all of you.”

“As long as they don’t have invisibility cloaks,” says Sam.

“Wouldn’t know,” Mattie says, grinning. “Good news is they’re probably only expecting me and Stick, so they’re going to be surprised to fight people who can actually see.”

“How are they with bullets?” Nat says, not looking up from her laptop.

“Frank took some of them out with a sniper rifle last year, so I’d say, same as anyone.”

Nat nods. Steve sees a look flit across Mattie’s face, but it’s gone before he can identify it.

“OK, here’s what I’ve got,” Nat says, setting her laptop down. Steve and Sam crowd around her to look at the screen. “Resurrection ritual involves pumping the blood of the willing sacrifices into the Resurrection Chamber.” She clicks and shows images, some from ancient wood block prints, some old photographs, some drawings, all of them disturbing. “It’s a pretty simple equation: not enough blood, no resurrection.”

“Charming,” says Sam.

“Mind-controlling the subject just means more spells beforehand on the sacrifices, more blood being pumped in. Now, the _possession_ ritual…” She clicks on a few other images, and runs the cursor over some Japanese calligraphy. “…is why they need that particular location. Apparently, it’s a nexus of some sort for mystical power, walls are thinnest between worlds…translation’s a little rough, it’s pretty archaic language they’re using, but -“

“They can pull the Beast through into Elektra’s body,” summarizes Steve.

“Yeah. More blood rituals, although this is more of the ‘willingly slit your own throat’ type. _But_ that can’t happen until Elektra’s alive again, and they probably want to wait a day or two after she’s been resurrected.”

“So if we stop the resurrection -“ says Mattie.

“The whole possession thing’s moot.”

“And once she’s alive?”

“They can’t force a Black Sky against its will.” Nat is looking at Mattie with those cool green eyes. “But nobody ever said the Black Sky can’t be mind-controlled.”

“Right,” Mattie says grimly.

Steve is pretty sure that everyone in the room knows what Mattie’s thinking.

“You can’t let them bring her back,” Steve says. “You know that, right? It won’t be _her_.”

“I know,” she says softly.

And Steve swallows his arguments about the natural order of things, and respecting Elektra’s choices, and just puts his arms around her.

Yeah, it’s going to be a long day.

They meet Stick on a rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen as the sun is going down. Mattie’s in her old black suit, and Steve wishes someone had warned him how she looks in it because it’s…distracting. It also affords her little to no protection, which he’s not a fan of, but there aren’t a lot of options. 

She’s not wearing a mask; she doesn’t need it anymore.

Stick sighs in exasperation when Steve lays out the plan, but doesn’t argue. Then Sam holds out his hand to Mattie.

“C’mon, girl,” he says, and Mattie gracefully loops her arms around his shoulders and her leg around his hips, and he takes off, the two of them silhouetted against the last light of the sun. Steve frowns as he watches them go. It had made _sense_ , pairing Sam and Mattie together, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to worry as long as she’s out of his sight.

“Let’s go,” he says, and Nat and Stick follow him over the rooftops until they’re opposite the construction site that hides the pit to summon the Beast. He nods to Stick, who peels off to circle around to the back. Steve counts his breaths as Stick disappears from sight, then nods to Nat.

There’s a chain-link fence around the construction site, which he and Nat scale easily. When they drop down, it’s eerily quiet, except for a rhythmic sound that seems to be bypassing his ears and travelling straight to his brain. Steve wonders if that’s what magic sounds like. He should ask Thor, next time he’s around.

The construction site is a nightmare from an infiltration point of view. He and Nat are exposed as they approach the pit, but there are plenty of shadows in which the Hand’s ninjas could be hiding. Steve feels the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and he _knows_ they’re being watched.

The first arrow comes out of nowhere, and Steve barely has time to deflect it with his club. Nat fires into the darkness, and there’s a thud of a falling body.

“Guess they know we’re here,” she says dryly.

“Guess so.”

And that’s when the shooting starts in earnest. They take cover behind a pile of concrete blocks; Nat tosses Steve one of her pistols, and they take turns shooting the archers. It’s times like this that Steve misses the shield. He covers Nat as she rolls towards the archers, and tosses a tiny explosive into the shadows. The explosion would barely injure their assailants, but it silhouettes them against the bright flash, and Steve shoots them easily.

They’re at the lip of the pit, and Steve looks down. He can see light at the bottom, a circle, and there is scaffolding all around the sides of the pit. He can see movement in the scaffolding, and Nat tackles him as an arrow flies up towards them.

“We’re at the edge,” he says.

“Roger,” says Sam over the comm. Steve and Nat crawl to the edge and start firing at the archers opposite them. “Incoming!” They hold fire.

Steve watches as Sam Wilson, Falcon, wings spread, dives straight down into the pit, Mattie Murdock clinging to him. Sam wheels and spins, firing at the Hand’s ninjas climbing the scaffolding. Twenty stories below him, Steve sees Mattie jump away from Sam, her grappling line firing, swinging into the air, twisting and crashing into the scaffolding. Over his comm, he hears her laugh. Bodies start falling into the pit. Taking advantage of the mayhem below, Steve and Nat launch themselves into the pit, sliding down the scaffolding, occasionally pausing to take out a ninja or six. Steve tosses Nat’s pistol back, and she double-fists her guns while Steve uses his clubs.

Steve sees a ninja fall past him, and glances up to see Stick at the lip of the pit, katana dripping blood.

“All clear,” Stick growls.

“Come on down,” Steve says.

The plan is working; they’ve sectioned off the pit into levels. Mattie has the lowest, Steve and Nat the middle, and Stick works down from the top to force the ninjas down. Sam provides covering fire.

Steve hears a scream of rage, and looks down to the pit floor, where Mattie is leaping off a huge grey sarcophagus at a red-haired woman holding a katana in one hand and a _wakizashi_ in the other. Steve fights the urge to jump down and help her.

_You have to trust her._

It’s hard to let it go, but Steve has other things to do. Like not getting sliced by a poisoned sword.

It seems like it takes hours, like the Hand’s numbers are limitless. Steve takes a sword strike to his armor-protected chest, and keeps going. Sam blows one entire side of the scaffolding, sending rubble and bodies down to the pit floor. Nat has a gash on her arm, but she shakes her head when Steve meets her eyes. Not poisoned.

And then it’s quiet, except for the clash of swords below.

The red-haired woman has already fallen to Mattie, but a ninja in red robes has taken her place. Steve rushes down the scaffolding, only to watch Mattie bend backwards to avoid a katana slice, then strike up to catch the sword with her club. She twists, flipping horizontally so that her boot meets the ninja’s face, and the man crumples to the ground. She kicks his sword away.

“The ritual,” Stick says, dropping down next to Steve.

Mattie holsters her clubs and turns to the giant sarcophagus, running her hand over the top, then dropping her hand down. There’s a bundle of red cables - no, red-filled tubes - attached to it. Steve jogs over to Mattie as she turns to follow the tubes. The sarcophagus is surrounded by floodlights, illuminating it, so Steve can’t see what’s beyond them, but the look of disgust on Mattie’s face tells him most of what he needs to know. He steps out of the circle of light, and lets his eyes adjust.

There are six…the only word he can think of is “coffins”, open at the top, with people sitting up in them. But they’re not sitting under their own power, most are slumped, unconscious, with tubes attached to their arms. Steve rushes forward and pulls one out, wincing at the size of the needle attached.

“Are they…?” he says.

“Those ones are already dead,” Mattie says, waving an arm to her right. “These ones are almost there.”

“Pull the needles, then,” snaps Stick behind them. Steve nods, and gets to work on the closest body, seeing Nat do the same out of the corner of his eye. Steve is startled when the body he’s pulling the needle out of gasps and shudders, but is too weak to even protest.

He hears a scraping noise behind him, and turns to see Mattie pushing the lid off the sarcophagus. As the lid crashes to the ground, he’s aware of a gnawing dread in his stomach.

“Mattie,” he says softly, going to her.

He looks down. He’s only seen pictures of Elektra, and thought her pretty in a sharp kind of way, but now he thinks he understands. She _is_ beautiful, lying there wrapped in red silk in a pool of blood. His mind goes to his childhood, the Grimm’s fairy tales, Snow White in her glass casket, still beautiful enough to win a prince’s heart.

Mattie slips off her glove, reaches down, and brushes her fingertips across Elektra’s cheek. It was never a prince that this Snow White was waiting for.

“Just in time,” Stick says. “C’mon, Mattie, we’ll get her properly buried where they won’t find her.”

He leans over, and Mattie grabs his arm, holding him back.

“Nat,” she says, “what happens if the ritual is completed without one of the Hand’s sacrifices?”

“Mattie,” Stick growls, and Steve watches her hand tighten on his arm.

“I don’t know,” Nat says. “Probably nothing. Or…”

“It _could_ bring her back,” Mattie says. “No mind control. Just her.”

“It’s possible,” Nat concedes.

“Not going to let you do this,” Stick says, and he breaks her hold. She ducks a punch, and slams Stick’s face into the lip of the sarcophagus, then throws him across the circle of light. When he stumbles to his feet, Nat is already there, kicking his legs out from under him.

“This is a bad idea,” Steve says.

“I know,” Mattie says, and he sees, for the first time in almost a year, the depth of the pain she’s been carrying. “But I have to try. I owe her that.”

He looks down at Elektra. He’s had almost a year with Mattie. He owes Elektra that, too.

“OK,” he whispers.

“Sam?” she says, tugging at one of the tubes until she has the needle in her hand.

“Oh, no. This is _against_ medical advice,” Sam says.

“I know.” She holds out the needle. “Please?”

Sam takes the needle. “Sit down, at least.” Sam strips the belt off one of the ninjas on the floor as Mattie sits on the ground, her back against the sarcophagus. Steve sits next to her and wraps his arm around her shoulders. Sam kneels in front of Mattie. “If you get some blood-borne disease, it’s not my fault.”

“Noted,” Mattie says. “Doubt they’d let their precious Black Sky get contaminated, anyway.”

“Yeah, that’s real comforting,” Sam grumbles, pushing up Mattie’s sleeve. He tightens the belt around her bicep. “Make a fist.” She does. Sam taps at her inner elbow, then pushes the needle into the crook of her arm. Steve feels her breath hitch, and he tightens his arm around her. He watches the blood start to flow down the tube, and Sam unties the belt. “You can relax your hand.”

Steve watches the tube fill with blood.

“Now what?” Mattie says quietly.

“We wait?” Sam says, sitting back on his heels. “How much blood do you think they need?”

“Three of them were still alive,” Steve says. “Only one was anywhere near consciousness.”

Whatever mechanism the Hand were using to drain blood from the sacrifices, magic or mechanical, it works efficiently. It’s only a few minutes before Sam is leaning forward, feeling Mattie’s pulse, his brow furrowed.

“Don’t touch it,” Mattie says. “Not yet.”

“This could turn into some serious blood loss,” Sam says.

“Been through worse,” she says.

Sam glances at Steve, who nods. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve sees Nat and Stick standing and watching, Stick glowering with his arms crossed, but not moving to interfere.

A few more minutes in silence. Mattie leans her head on Steve’s shoulder, and he notices her breathing is shallow and fast.

“I love you,” she whispers.

“Love you too,” he whispers back.

Sam takes her pulse.

“This is getting dangerous,” he says to Mattie.

“Not yet,” she growls. And she can’t see the look on Sam’s face, but she can apparently guess, because she follows that up with, “Fuck’s sake, Wilson, I can still kick your ass.”

“Language,” Steve murmurs. It’s not funny. Mattie laughs anyway.

The seconds tick by, and then Mattie’s head slumps on his shoulder. Sam leaps forward, taking her pulse.

“Steve, we’ve got to stop,” he says. Mattie’s barely conscious, although she makes a negative sound. Steve hesitates, caught between Mattie’s wishes and his own need to protect her, when he hears Stick say, “Shit.”

Steve looks over at the old man, then he hears it.

Elektra is breathing in the sarcophagus. Gasping for air.

“Get it out of her, now,” he orders Sam. Stick runs forward, leaning over the lip of the sarcophagus.

“Easy, Ellie, easy,” he says, as if he’s soothing a horse. Steve watches Sam pull the needle out and press a torn scrap of fabric to Mattie’s elbow. He holds her arm still while Sam tightens the fabric around it.

“She needs a hospital,” Sam says.

“The Storefront. Claire will know what to do,” Steve says. Sam nods and gathers Mattie in his arms, spreading his wings.

“Matilda?” comes a woman’s voice, and Steve glances behind him to see Elektra sitting up in the sarcophagus, her eyes wide. Sam leaps into the air, rocketing up to the surface. There’s a sound of scuffling, and Steve turns back to see Elektra holding Stick by the throat. “What did you do to her?” she demands.

“He didn’t do anything,” Steve says. “It was her choice.”

Elektra releases Stick. “To do what?” she says.

“To save you.”

Elektra glances up to where Sam went. “And what about her?” If Steve had any doubts that this was the real Elektra, the fear in her voice dispels them.

“He’s taken her to get help,” he says.

Elektra nods, and then seems to suddenly take in the scene. She rises regally, holding the red silk shroud around herself. Steve offers his hand, and she takes it, letting him lift her out of the sarcophagus onto the floor. Her back and her hair are soaked in blood. She peers at him with her big dark eyes.

“Who are you?” she says.

“I’m…” He’s not sure what to say. “Steve Rogers.”

Her brow wrinkles. “I know that name,” she says.

“It’ll come to you,” Stick says gruffly. “C’mon, Ellie, let’s get you cleaned up.”

She stares at Stick for a long moment, and Steve wonders if he should keep her away from Stick. If she needs protecting, too.

But she nods, and gathers the red silk around her, stepping delicately around the rubble and the weapons on the ground. She glances over her shoulder at Steve, still puzzled, but doesn’t say anything.

“Go,” Nat says. “Just go to her.”

Steve runs and jumps at the scaffolding, hauling himself up, climbing forty stories of scaffolding as quickly as he can. His arms ache by the time he hauls himself out of the pit, but he keeps going, climbing the chain-link fence, running, up a fire escape to the roofs, then racing over the Hell’s Kitchen skyline to the Storefront Clinic.

At this time of night, he has to press the doorbell to get into the clinic. The door is opened by a bald black man with approximately the same proportions as Thor who peers at him suspiciously for a moment, before his eyes widen in recognition.

“Aw, shit,” Luke (this must be Luke Cage) breathes.

Steve manages to gasp out, “Mattie, is she OK?”

“Claire’s with her,” Luke says. He steps aside, and Steve rushes in to see Claire and Sam talking very rapidly over Mattie, lying on the bed. There’s a mask over her face and an IV line into each of her arms. One of the bags is red, the other is clear. Claire jabs a needle into the clear IV line. Sam looks up and sees Steve.

“Is she…” Steve says.

“Not out of the danger zone yet,” Sam says. Claire drapes another blanket over Mattie’s body.

“Need to keep her warm,” Claire mutters. She steps back, wiping her forehead on her sleeve. “What the hell happened?”

“Magic blood resurrection ritual?” says Sam.

“Seriously?!” Claire throws up her hands. “She’s pulled a _lot_ of stupid shit since I’ve met her -“

“She was saving someone’s life,” Steve says. “And it worked.” Claire’s still frowning, and now it’s directed at him. “Can I…?” He waves at Mattie.

“Be my guest.”

Steve pulls a chair over to the bed and sits down, holding Mattie’s hand in his. Sam squeezes his shoulder. Claire slides a stethoscope under Mattie’s shirt, listening hard. Steve sees Luke standing in the doorway, his arms crossed and his brow furrowed.

“Heart rate’s dropping,” Claire says, which seems to make Sam feel better. “Just have to wait, now.”

Steve nods.

They wait. Luke brings in chairs for everyone, and they keep a vigil over Mattie. Every so often, Claire checks her heart rate, or switches the IV bags, but Steve can’t relax until Claire says that Mattie will be OK. It doesn’t come.

_She looks so pale._

Nat arrives, telling them she parked the car close by. She squeezes Steve’s shoulder, too, and he wishes they’d stop doing that, they did the same thing when Peggy died, and Mattie’s not going to die.

He clings to her hand.

_She’s not going to die._

Eventually, Claire takes the oxygen mask off her, and nods. It’s a good sign. Luke offers to get them coffee from a bodega, and none of them have their wallets on them. Luke says he’ll cover it, to their unending gratitude.

Steve stares at Mattie’s face, as if it’s the first time he’s seen her. She looks serene, the way she never does, even when she’s sleeping. _Sleeping Beauty, pricked by a spindle._ If only a kiss would wake her up.

Nat reacts first, has a gun out and pointed at Elektra’s face before Steve even realizes that she’s in the room. Elektra holds up her hands.

“I just wanted to see her,” Elektra says. Steve notices that she’s wearing black. He wonders where she got the clothes. “Is she going to be all right?”

“Still need time,” Claire says. She seems unperturbed by the undead assassin in her clinic, or the fact that the Black Widow is holding her at gunpoint.

Elektra nods. “I can’t stay,” she says. “May I?” She gestures at Mattie. Nat holsters her pistol and nods. Elektra approaches Mattie, and brushes her fingers over Mattie’s cheek, a mirror of the gesture Mattie had made. Then she leans down and kisses Mattie’s lips, Snow White kissing Sleeping Beauty.

Mattie doesn’t wake up.

Steve thinks he should be jealous of this woman, who tore apart Mattie’s life so easily. But he can only feel sorry for her, for the sadness that he can see in her face.

She looks up at Steve.

“I’m glad she found…someone like you,” she says, her hand still on Mattie’s face. Steve nods at her, and he thinks they have an understanding, him and Elektra.

She leaves then, as if she was never there.

Claire checks Mattie’s heartrate, and nods. It’s a good sign.

It’s a little while before Mattie opens her eyes, and the first thing she says is, “Steve?”

And all he can do is smile, and say, “Hey,” before he kisses her.


	7. My Heart is Sick of Being in Chains

“You’re doing it again.”

She can hear Steve hesitating, caught. “Gazing at you lovingly?” he tries hopefully.

“Staring at me creepily while I sleep.”

Steve’s arm wraps around her waist and he kisses her shoulder. “Just…thankful. That you’re still here.”

She groans and rolls over to face him. “Is this going to be a thing? Every time I get hurt?”

“No…but maybe we should go to San Francisco, talk to Hope’s dad about maybe getting you some armor…or an armored bubble? I think that could work.” Fortunately for him, he’s not serious.

“That’s a bit rich coming from the guy who makes a habit of crashing aircrafts.”

“I don’t…I haven’t _crashed_ one since -“

“May. Berlin. You crashed the helicopter.”

“Technically, Bucky was flying that one.”

“You were the one who crashed it.” She pokes his chest as he rolls onto his back, and nestles her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “Gonna get you into trouble, Rogers.”

“Already did. Don’t know if you heard, but I got frozen for seventy years. Then I met you, nothing but trouble ever since.”

She smiles and closes her eyes, listening to his heart beating.

“Are you asleep?” he whispers.

“Not anymore,” she growls.

 _Such an asshole._ She snuggles closer to him. _I love him so much._

It’s been a week since the Hand. Mattie has had to spend most of it in bed, per Claire’s orders. Actually, Claire had ordered _Steve_ to keep her in bed, had said, “tie her down, if you have to.” Mattie had made a comment about possibly enjoying that, and Steve hadn’t been able to speak coherently for a full five minutes while Sam had complained that he did _not_ need those mental images.

Every time Sam had come into the bedroom to check on her, he’d very loudly declared that “there better not be any kinky shit happening.”

There are worse ways, Mattie thinks, to start a new life.

She’s in the clear now, though, so they need to start moving again. She lets Nat cut and dye her hair in the bathroom after breakfast.

“It’s the same color I used to use,” Nat says. “It’s not going to be as bright as it was on me, but it should give you a nice dark red.” She combs the goo through Mattie’s hair. “Don’t tell the guys,” Nat says, and Mattie can hear the grin in her voice, “they all thought it was real.” She leans in. “I’m naturally ginger,” she whispers conspiratorially.

They laugh together. “Well, do whatever you want,” Mattie says, gesturing at her own hair. “You could dye it blue, for I all I care.”

“Don’t tempt me, you’d look cute.”

When Nat’s done, Mattie runs her hand over her hair, feeling the short hairs at the back of her neck. A pixie cut, Nat had said. She feels lighter, but she’s felt lighter ever since she stood in the courtroom and blew up her life.

Steve says she looks nice. He’s not lying.

They pack up the apartment during the day, scrubbing it of any evidence of their presence. Sam and Nat take the car and most of their belongings in the afternoon, intending to switch the car once they’re out of the city. They’ll meet Steve and Mattie at the new safe house in three days.

Once the sun has gone down, Steve and Mattie take the subway into Manhattan. Steve needs to pick up their transport, and Mattie…

Mattie has one more thing she needs to do.

She slings her bag onto her back, and runs over the rooftops of Hell’s Kitchen, using her grappling line to swing ever higher, before she lands on the high-rise roof. She lets herself in, sliding down the fire exit stairs, until she reaches the right floor. She flips up her hood and emerges into the hall, listening for the familiar heartbeat.

She knocks on the door, and it’s Jessica Jones who opens it.

“Oh,” Jessica says. “C’mon in. Nice hair.” She calls into the condo as she closes the door. “It’s OK, it’s just Mattie.”

“What?” Foggy says, emerging from the kitchen. His hands are damp, and he smells of dish soap. “Oh, Jesus.” He rushes at Mattie, hugging her. “You hungry? I’ve got some food left over -“

“Nah, I already ate.” They stand there awkwardly, because they both know why she’s here. Jessica drapes herself over one of Foggy’s armchairs.

“New hair,” Foggy says.

“Yeah.”

“Looks good.” Foggy’s fiddling with his shirttail. “You want a drink?” he tries.

“Yeah.” She smiles as Foggy pulls out his good whiskey, and sits on his couch.

“Jess?” he calls.

“Sure, if it’s the good shit.” Jessica shrugs while Foggy pours out three glasses. “Perks of bodyguarding a rich dude.”

Mattie inhales the rich, smoky scent of the whiskey, then holds out her glass. Foggy clinks it, but doesn’t say what they’re toasting to. They drink.

“You heard about the Bar Association?” Foggy says.

“Yeah. I got disbarred.” They’d held the disciplinary hearing in absentia. “Knew it was coming.” It still hurts, though.

“And Fisk?” 

“Heard a bit about that. Anything new?”

“They’ve opened up a new investigation. Hoffman, and Mary Walker, and all the rest. And apparently there’s some evidence about a deal with the Secretary of State?”

Mattie smiles. “Nat got really excited when she found the evidence for that.”

“Karen’s been having a field day writing about it,” Foggy says. He swallows. “She’s going to be…She’s going to be sad that she missed you.”

“Yeah,” Mattie says quietly. “Tell her…I’m gonna miss her.”

“Yeah. Oh!” Foggy jumps up and runs to the kitchen table. He picks up a large box, and holds it out to Mattie. “This is for you. Frank gave it to Karen, who gave it to me.” Mattie takes it. She can hear fabric inside, she thinks. She opens it.

It’s clothing, that much she can tell from the start. There’s a note tucked into the top garment, that she hands to Foggy.

“‘Let them know who’s fighting for them,’” he reads out. “It’s signed ‘Melvin and Betsy.’” Mattie unfolds the top garment, a suit jacket. The outer layer is an expensive wool, soft to the touch, but the lining…

_You want a suit? Like Mr Fisk?_

“Jesus Christ, Melvin,” she whispers. He’s made her a full three-piece suit, armor-lined. She can feel holsters for her clubs sewn into the lining of the jacket. The waistcoat is thicker, with heavier protection. At the bottom of the box are a pair of short wrist-length gloves and a pair of boots.

“It’s red,” Foggy says. “Not like, Hillary Clinton-style red, but…the same color your old suit was.”

There’s a belt, too. Mattie runs her hand over the buckle, and traces the interlocking D’s etched there.

She smells saline, and for a moment she thinks that Foggy’s crying, before she notices the tear running down her cheek.

“You’re really going, aren’t you?” he says, his voice choked. “Off to save the world with Captain America.”

“He doesn’t go by that anymore, he’s a little touchy about it,” she says, grateful to be able to make a joke.

Foggy lurches at her and pulls her into a bone-crushing embrace. “You come back, OK?” he whispers against her ear. “Don’t you dare die out there.”

“I promise,” she whispers. “You stay safe, too.” They’re both a little soggy when they pull apart, and Foggy discreetly blows his nose as Mattie fumbles through her bag. “This is for you,” she says, holding out the burner phone. “Anything happens here, you need us, just call.” Foggy nods as he takes it from her.

She packs the new suit in her bag, then stands up.

“I should go,” she says. Foggy hugs her one last time, then Jessica opens the front door for her.

“Don’t worry,” Jessica says. “I got him.”

“Thanks.”

 _It’s a good thing I’m blind_ , she thinks as she runs over the rooftops. If she weren’t, she wouldn’t be able to see through the tears.

She stops on the roof of Fogwell’s, and listens to her city for the last time. _Not the last time. Just for now._ She breathes in Hell’s Kitchen, her home, her blood, trying to sear it into her memory. A year ago, she’d never left New York. And now she’s leaving, and doesn’t know when she can come back.

It makes her feel a little sad, but it’s not as frightening as she thought it would be.

She climbs down and slips into the gym. Steve is waiting for her, sitting on a bench.

“One last time?” he says.

She smiles and drops her bag to the floor.

They take off their shoes and spar in the ring. It’s casual, almost lazy, and when Steve pins her and kisses her, it feels _right_.

When they’re done sparring, Steve leads her out to the alley behind the building.

“Is that your bike?” she says. “The one that was parked at the Tower?”

“Yes.” He tosses her a helmet. “I found my keys when we were scrubbing your apartment.”

“Did you just break into Avengers Tower and steal it back?”

“FRIDAY still likes me,” he says smugly.

“Did you check it for tracking devices?”

“Yes. And when I found the first one, I checked it again and found the secondary one.”

She nods and mounts the bike behind him.

“So, we’ve got three days before we need to meet up with Sam and Nat,” he says, turning the key and revving the engine. “Where to?”

She smiles and wraps her arms around his waist. 

“I don’t know,” she says.

They have a whole wide world to choose from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For any of you non-comics readers, the red suit is based on the suit Matt wore in Daredevil Volume 4 (written by Mark Waid). If you need a visual reference:
> 
> https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51NX0WpbhWL._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
> 
> Thank you, all of you! You have no idea how much I appreciate hearing from you and knowing you're reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title and chapter titles are all from "Crucify" by Tori Amos. I know it's cliched to use song lyrics, but this one came on while I was writing and wouldn't let go. Plus, I feel that Mattie in her teenaged emo phase was absolutely listening to Tori. :)


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